


Tales From the Sanctioned Brothel: Part I: The Painted Boy

by ColdColdHeart



Series: The Key to Oslov [13]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BDSM, Body Modification, Bondage, Branding, Brothels, Class Differences, Dark, Dehumanization, Drug Addiction, Dubious Consent, Dystopia, F/F, F/M, Forced Prostitution, Intrigue, M/M, Past Brainwashing, Power Dynamics, Powerlessness, Prostitution, Rebellion, Recovery, Sexual Slavery, Suicidal Thoughts, Tattoos, Voyeurism, Whipping, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:49:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 57,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23970334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColdColdHeart/pseuds/ColdColdHeart
Summary: In a government-run brothel, a young killer on a revenge mission meets a broken, fallen addict whose body is covered with the marks of powerful men's desires. Society defines them as trash, but together, they might just take the power back.So yeah, the "Key to Oslov" series continues. Where will we be spending the 20 years or so that it takes Ceill Linnett to grow up? In the Sanctioned Brothel, mostly, following Einara's machinations until they (inevitably) collide with Tilrey's.The Brothel stories may or may not work as standalones. The prologue to this one makes more sense if you've read"A Serviceable Boy", as it fills in an episode from the two years that story skipped over. Einara's origins are covered in"Crosscurrents and Consequences".
Series: The Key to Oslov [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1193242
Comments: 53
Kudos: 57





	1. Prologue: Pictures of You

**Author's Note:**

> These Tales will alternate with glimpses of Ceill's life as he grows, starting with [Feather Snow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23401396/chapters/56082049). 
> 
> That story was sweet and fluffy! The Brothel stories will not be. While most of the sex here is technically consensual, and some might even be happy and loving, there's always violence and coercion lurking around the edges, because that's the kind of place Oslov is. So please be aware of the tags; I may add new ones as I go.
> 
> I'm also [on Tumblr](https://welcome-to-oslov.tumblr.com/)! I hope everyone out there is staying safe and well, and thank you again, from the bottom of my heart, for reading. <3

_Summer, year 347 (about a year after the main action of “A Serviceable Boy,” and a year before its epilogue)_

“Pictures of me?” Tilrey asked.

Fir Councillor Arvan Saldegren rubbed his hands together nervously. “I should have mentioned it earlier, I know. But I only just got Verán’s permission.”

_What about mine?_ Tilrey’s permission didn’t matter, of course, but he couldn’t pretend to be fine with this. For once in his life, he was having a hard time not yelling at an Upstart: _What the fuck were you thinking?_

He felt betrayed by Vanya Saldegren, who was probably his favorite Councillor after Gersha, if he really had to pick one. They’d been having a perfectly fine evening, relaxing in the living room with tea and sap and little cod dumplings, when Vanya announced out of the blue that he had a “photographer” waiting outside in the driver’s apartment. To take pictures of Tilrey, which Vanya wanted as “keepsakes.”

“You could’ve warned me, Fir.” Tilrey tried to modulate his voice, but the usual deference wasn’t coming. “These photos—I assume I’ll be naked in them? I mean, that’s the point, right?”

“Oh dear.” Saldegren’s dark eyes looked mournful. “I guess it never occurred to me it would bother you so much.”

_Because I’m a kettle boy. Because I’m naked for you all the time._ Rage choked Tilrey, and for a moment he could only twist his hands in his lap, because if he opened his mouth he would say something unacceptable.

“Rishka. Sweetheart. Look at me.” Saldegren touched his cheek. “We’ve known each other for nearly six years. I’d never hurt you.”

Tilrey stared at the floor. “I don’t think you understand, Fir.”

“The woman I got is a professional—I’m told she shoots half the streams they make in the Outer Ring. She’ll be quick and discreet, I promise.”

As if that was what Tilrey cared about. “The photographer isn’t the point,” he said.

“What is, then? I promise you, no one will see the finished pictures but me—and Verán, of course. Naturally he asked for copies; that’s his right. But they won’t be shared around. Is that what you’re worried about?”

Now, at last, Tilrey raised his eyes. Saldegren was a big man, doughy and paunchy and handsome in the face, with smooth brown skin, jet-black hair, and long-lashed, expressive eyes. He looked genuinely distressed, as if it hurt him to see Tilrey upset. Why were Upstarts so thick sometimes?

“There’s nothing you can do about this now, Fir.” He emphasized each word. “You put the idea in Verán’s head. He’ll want those pictures. But if you’d asked _me_ first, I’d have told you there’s no way to stop photos from being shared.”

“There most certainly are ways.” Saldegren spoke with the condescension of someone who effortlessly accessed info-nets every day, sometimes every hour, while Tilrey wasn’t even supposed to know how to use a network portal. “I assure you, my files are secure.”

“What about Verán? What about the people he sends the files to, and the ones _they_ send them to? When people start sharing something, it doesn’t stop, Fir. I may not know anything about your networks, but I’ve seen the end result.”

A few years ago, Lus, one of the other kettle boys, had allowed photos to be made of him. Months later, Tilrey had been sitting between Lus and Bror in the Café when a teenage schoolgirl crept up to them, red-faced, and asked Lus to autograph the print-out she clutched in her sweaty fingers.

There Lus was in the picture, stretched out winsomely on a Councillor’s bed, naked as the day he was born. When he asked where the girl had procured his image, she contemplated the floorboards and said, “My whole dorm has it. I think Bronia got it off her dad’s terminal.”

“And why on earth do you want me to sign it?” Lus pursued.

The girl went redder. “You’re beautiful,” she whispered. “I wish I could watch you in streams.”

Lus found the whole incident hilarious. He signed the picture, _Your secret sweetheart when you’re old enough, Lusha._

But after the girl retreated, Bror said with surprising sternness, “I never let a camera near me. When I’m forty-five with kids her age, I don’t want Strutters passing around pictures of my cock.”

Now shame thickened Tilrey’s voice. “No matter how secure a network is, nothing ever goes away. I may not know much, Fir, but I know that.”

“Tilrey, please.” Saldegren was wringing his hands.“I’ve never known you to be so modest.”

“It’s not a question of modesty, it’s a question of . . . having my own life. Do you think I want someone waving these photos in my face when I’m old?”

“Would that be so bad? To be reminded of how lovely you were at twenty-four?”

Saldegren colored as he said it. That must be what the man wanted, Tilrey realized with a chill between his shoulder blades—to keep a permanent record of the Tilrey he knew now. Twenty years into the future, Saldegren could still wank off to images of a doe-eyed, compliant boy who would never grow old or ugly or opinionated.

It made so much sense, when you thought about it, that Tilrey was stunned no man had ever demanded this from him before. Even Malsha, who delighted in tormenting him, never thought to capture his likeness.

It was no good protesting once Verán was involved. Though Tilrey had lived with Gersha for the past year, the Island majority leader still considered him the party’s possession, and Verán took pride in showing off that possession in various ways, most of them more intrusive than photography. If Tilrey said no to this, Verán might simply arrange a photo session of his own with an audience of leering Island Councillors.

And if Gersha happened to be present? Verán delighted in embarrassing his younger colleague, and Gersha would be so outraged by Tilrey’s humiliation, so _sad_.

“Fine.” Tilrey rose so quickly that Saldegren flinched. “Fetch your photographer, Fir. But first, I have two conditions.”

“Anything, love.” Saldegren’s hand hovered above Tilrey’s shoulder as if he thought it might be slapped away.

“First, don’t stay to watch. Just me and the photographer. Second, don’t show the pictures to Fir Gádden.”

“But Gersha might want—”

Tilrey turned his face to stone. “Trust me. I can’t control what Fir Verán might do, but please don’t show Gersha. For all our sakes. _Ever_.”

***

He waited alone in Saldegren’s bedroom. Though it was nearly nine, the sun was still well above the horizon, clouds diffusing the light. A pewter glow spilled through the wide window and across the white carpet, backlighting a few lazy snowflakes.

Tilrey had stripped immediately and wrapped himself in one of Saldegren’s lightweight white robes. He wasn’t exactly a blushing virgin, as Saldegren had pointed out, but this photographer was a Drudge like him, and he’d be damned if he’d undress for her.

The people who made entertainment streams were low-rationed and generally regarded as only a step up from whores—indeed, many of the actors were moonlighting whores with regular postings at the Sanctioned. So he and the photographer were in the same business of providing pleasure, Tilrey supposed, though he generally catered to high Upstarts and she to weary factory workers.

When the door clicked open, he didn’t look away from the window.

“Very nice,” a breathless voice said. “We’ll start with you right there, in the sun. Could you give me some help first, though?”

She was a wiry little woman in her fifties, staggering under the weight of a large nylon case and an assortment of metal poles. Tilrey relieved her of both—a light load for him—and leaned them against the bed. “Do you want me to set them up?”

“No, that’s fine, lad. I can handle the rest.” She knelt to unzip the case. “Hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

“Not long.”

“Good.” She paused in her unpacking to stick out a hand. “Ilskund, Karina. I didn’t catch your name?”

“I don’t think my name is essential here.” Green hells, he sounded as cold and snide as Malsha. Gersha would have been shocked.

Karina withdrew her hand. “Suit yourself—though it might be easier if I knew what to call you. I’ll be a moment setting up, and then we can start.”

Tilrey returned to the window. The view was nothing special—other people’s windows, and between them an alley offering a distant glimpse of the jet-black monoliths of the Sector. The light blued as the sun fell. He kept expecting the snow to thicken or stop, but no, just sparse, dry flakes filtering down. This hour caught between day and dusk made him ache with loneliness, remembering the white nights he’d spent with Gersha in the Southern Range.

_Don’t be an idiot._ He would see Gersha tomorrow morning. Normally by this time he would be on his knees sucking Saldegren’s cock, doing his job and keeping all thoughts of Gersha properly compartmentalized. But everything was wrong tonight; everything was off. It was the photographer’s fault.

“We’re almost ready. Would you mind taking a few pulls of this?”

She was holding out a flask. “What’s that?” he asked.

“To help you relax.” Karina’s skinny face wasn’t memorable, but her heavy-lidded eyes had a compelling glint to them, a watchfulness. “Nothing heavy—just comfrey tea, honey, and a third of a V of sap.”

“I don’t need that.” The tie of Tilrey’s robe had loosened. He gave it a tug and let the garment fall open, standing tall and rolling back his shoulders to show her what she had to work with. “Ready.”

Karina didn’t seem to register his display. “I know this isn’t easy. But when you’re tense, it shows in the final product.”

“I’m not tense.” Maybe this woman had seen enough cocks not to care about one more, but he felt stupid. He grabbed her flask and took a careful sip. “I just want this over with.”

“And that’s what the camera picks up—your impatience. Would you mind drinking a little more of that, just as a favor to me?”

It felt strange to be asked politely instead of ordered—almost like being with Gersha. Maybe that was why Tilrey kept drinking, noting how his nervous system reacted to the modest concentration of sap in the mixture. Experience had taught him exactly how much he could take. When he handed the flask back, he was a little fuzzy-headed, but still in control.

“Would you mind if I touched your face?” Karina asked in that same courteous way. “Just so I can get a better look at you?”

He slumped against the windowframe so she could take his face lightly between her hands—hand-knitted half-gloves, cold fingertips—and peer into it. “Look away from me. Around the room.”

He looked. She’d set up several shiny discs on poles, angled to reflect the daylight. There were a few long-necked lights, too, plugged into outlets but not turned on.

“Do I need makeup?” He carried around a tube of tinted cream he’d started using when he lived with Magistrate Linden, to cover the bruises.

“No.” Karina released him. “It wouldn’t be an improvement. Could you stand the way you were before, by the window? Looking out, showing me your profile?”

Tilrey tried to find the pose again, but it felt unnatural. “I don’t want to do this,” he muttered, the sap loosening his inhibitions. “I told the Fir. It was his idea.”

“It always is, isn’t it?” Karina didn’t seem perturbed. “What were you thinking of earlier, when you were looking out the window? Could you think of it again?”

Images and sensations flooded back before Tilrey could stop them. Gersha’s white throat, bared as he arched his back in ecstasy. Black lashes on pale cheeks. A warm arm around Tilrey’s shoulders, pulling him close. A tenor voice with the slightest tremor: _I love you_.

“Oh good. Very good. If you could stay like that.”

Her camera made little whirring sounds. Tilrey could see it from the corner of his eye: a black cube blinking at him. His throat tightened. He didn’t want to think about Gersha when he was in Saldegren’s bedchamber, didn’t want to pollute Gersha that way.

“Relax.” Still the soothing tone. “There’s nothing to worry about. You can’t do anything wrong.”

_No?_ “All of this is wrong,” he said, clenching jaw and fists at once. “You think this is what I want from life? To be wank material for every Upstart in Redda for the next few decades?”

A soft snort of laughter. “That many for that long, wanking over you? You think a lot of yourself.”

“I don’t mean that, it’s just—” But she had a point. “Okay, not _every_ Upstart. But enough of them. I know how stuff gets passed around.”

“Tilrey. I need you relaxed, remember?”

He looked straight at her. “You do know my name.”

“Fir Councillor mentioned it.” Karina lowered the camera so he could see the gray circles under her eyes. “Look, I know you’re not happy with this, but it’s my job and your job. And we have to do our jobs, don’t we?”

He turned back to the window. The snow was still drifting. “So you’re not going to tell me the photo _won’t_ get passed around? Like the Fir did?”

The whir of the shutter answered for her.

“Fuck it,” Tilrey muttered. The longer he stayed with Gersha, the more likely Gersha would see these pictures. He could already see Gersha’s pained face as he looked up from a message from Verán on his handheld: _Why didn’t you tell me?_

“When people pass it around, it won’t be you anymore,” Karina said. “Not really.”

“Who else would it be?” _It’s not your fault_ , Gersha would be quick to assure Tilrey. But the pained expression would remain.

“People will see whatever they choose to see in it. Fantasies. An ideal, maybe. The lover they dream of.” She lowered the camera and unscrewed the lens. “That’s good for the window. We’ll take the rest on the bed. Could you muss it up a little, then lie on top of the covers? Close the robe, but tie it loosely. You want to look like you’re napping after a bout of passion with your lover.”

“Bout of passion, huh?” Tilrey went over and disarranged the bed while she moved the reflectors into new positions. “I thought we were doing our jobs.”

“And passion’s never part of your job?” She tilted her head, watching as he stretched out and adjusted his robe to offer just a peek of thigh. When he propped himself on one elbow, she said, “You look like you’re posing. Tell me, isn’t there a single Councillor you prefer to the others? One who makes your blood race?”

Tilrey hoped she couldn’t see the flush in his cheeks. “Is that what you ask the whores from the Sanctioned when you aim your camera at them? Whether they feel sentimental about any of their patrons?”

“Fuck sentimentality. I don’t mean that.”

He rolled his eyes. “Enlighten me.”

“I’m talking about that waterlogged feeling you get when you’ve been rubbed all the right ways by someone you _like_. When you’re beautifully sated and almost ready for a second round.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, peered through the viewfinder, then stood up again. “I need you to lounge the way you would if you were dozing off a mind-blowing orgasm. And think about the person who gave it to you.”

“I don’t have mind-blowing orgasms.” He hated her for making him think about things that had no place here. He sounded prim and awful, but he didn’t care. “I give them. That’s what I’m for.”

“If that’s true, it sounds very sad.” She circled the bed, trying another angle. “When I look at you, I don’t see an object for other people’s pleasure. I see someone who thinks and feels. Surely someone else sees that, too?”

Again that warmth in his face. _Gersha’s firm hand on his cock. Flushed cheeks and gleaming eyes. Gersha’s voice raised, telling him to come. Gersha’s wet mouth—_

_Shit._ He tugged the robe over his swelling cock, mortified. Had she seen? But no, she was busy adjusting a reflector.

If he had to do this, he would think about _after_ instead of _during_. Waiting in bed for Gersha to return, his whole body heavy with satisfaction, his eyelids drooping. Knowing it was only the afternoon of a long vacation day, and they had the whole night ahead of them.

The shutter whirred. “That’s more like it,” Karina said in the soft, coaxing voice she’d used earlier. “Turn toward me, but keep your eyes open just a slit? Yes. Yes. Now roll on your back and let the robe fall open. But not on purpose—you’re not performing. You’re just napping and waiting for . . . him? Her? Whoever it is, you don’t need to pose for them. They like you just as you are.”

The simple, pedestrian phrase made Tilrey blush again with surprising force. _Does anyone really like me as I am? Even Gersha?_ To cover up the stab of feeling, he said, “I still don’t understand what you meant before. When you said the pictures wouldn’t be me.”

“Could you find a more natural way to put your arms? They’re too stiff at your sides.” She was moving around the bed, the camera clicking and whirring at intervals. “You still won’t understand if I explain it, because none of us really do. I’m not just capturing pieces of reality in this camera. I’m making art.”

_Art._ Tilrey had heard Malsha use the word, often to translate something in a Harbourer text. It was for decoration, not information. “Like the roof of the foyer in the Lounge. With the Feudal designs.” It had never occurred to him to think of a photograph that way. “But photos show reality.”

“Do they?” She was kneeling beside the bed, angling the camera up at him. “Try your arms above your head—but natural, like you’re stretching.”

He stretched, and she nodded in his peripheral vision. “Good. Considering how easily we make and share images, it’s bizarre how little respect we have for them. My mentor used to say most people can’t wrap their brains around the difference between an ID photo and a work of art.”

Was there a difference? “Photos are for documentation and surveillance,” Tilrey pointed out. “I mean, unless they’re like these, for people to jerk off to.”

“Right, right. Government surveillance and cheap wank material. But believe me, images can be something else, something better, and our senses know it. Our bodies know.”

Her voice throbbed as the camera whirred again. “Head toward me—not quite that much. Better. Now open your eyes, but don’t look at me. Look toward the window. You’re waiting for _him._ He’s coming.”

Tilrey’s cock was still just hard enough to be a pleasant weight between his legs. He let his thighs fall open and gazed off toward the window— _here I am, take me as you like._ He imagined Gersha’s warm breath on his neck, Gersha’s half-clothed body lowering itself on top of him. Kisses on his collarbone, teeth briefly catching his nipple.

And before he knew what he was doing, he was arching his back and offering his throat to receive the kisses, letting his head fall back. Presenting himself for the taking.

_Click. Whir._ Tilrey froze up. His arm was cramping, and he didn’t like what he’d just shown her.

But her voice wasn’t any different when she asked him to roll over on his front and push the robe aside, baring his ass.

Well, that was predictable. At least his face wasn’t in these shots, so he could clench his jaw all he liked as she instructed him first to lie naturally, then to raise his hips.

A few more clicks and whirs, and then he heard the clinking of moving equipment again. “Where do you want me now?” he asked, rolling over.

Karina was folding up one of the reflector stands. “Wherever you like. We’re done.”

“We’re done?” Tilrey sat up. This was all he’d wanted, but somehow it felt premature. “Are you sure you got what you needed? What the Fir wants?”

The photographer tucked the metal stand into her bag with deft, practiced movements. “I’m sure.”

“And was it art?” He yanked his robe closed and tied it, suddenly mortified by the arousal he’d experienced earlier. “Or just cheap wank material?”

She shrugged. She wasn’t looking at him anymore, as if her eyes were weary of him. “Sometimes the difference is in the eye of the beholder. But when you look at the final product, I hope you’ll see a little of what I saw.”

“And what’s that?” He felt stupid asking.

Karina hoisted the poles over her shoulder. In the doorway, she said, “A young man full of love and restless energy. Who is going to learn to use both one day.”

***

“Was that so bad?” Saldegren asked. He was on top of Tilrey, face to face, taking the first shallow, considerate strokes inside him.

The Councillor paused to gather his breath, then thrust in again with a soft moan. “She seems— _oh, green hills and valleys_ —good at what she does. They say there’s only one master photographer in every generation. That person trains a sole apprentice. _Fuck_ , that’s good. I’m not hurting you, am I?”

Tilrey knew how to pretend for Saldegren—raise his hips, close his eyes, bare his throat the way he’d done for the photographer. This time he didn’t do any of it, just kept his gaze upward and his face calm. “No, Fir. Totally fine.”

“You’re still angry at me, aren’t you?” Halfway inside him, Saldegren reached for Tilrey’s cock, and Tilrey had to squelch an impulse to slap the man’s hand away. “I wish you’d trust me, love. No one, _no one_ outside Verán’s circle will see those pics.”

“I’m sure.” Tilrey shifted irritably, feeling a cramp in his thigh coming on. Saldegren was so heavy _._ “I’m ready, Fir. Would you please go ahead and enjoy yourself?”

“I hate when you get like this. It’s like you’re trying to punish me.” But Saldegren’s cock had its own view of the situation, and soon he was bracing himself on his elbows and rutting hard and fast into Tilrey with no thought for anyone’s pleasure but his own.

Tilrey breathed through it and stared up at the canopy. Outside, it was blue dusk now, as close to night as it would get at this season.

He wondered if everybody who ended up seeing the photos would fantasize about possessing his body the way Saldegren was right now. Or would some viewers see something different, possibly even what Karina claimed to see?

_A young man full of love and restless energy._ He wasn’t a man, just a boy who wasn’t even sure what love was. And _learn to use both one day_ —she sounded like one of those fortune tellers who lurked in the Outer Ring, preying on superstitious Laborers.

Still.

Tilrey hoped Gersha would never see the photos. At the same time, just a bit, he hoped Gersha would.

***

_Year 354 (present day)_

“Well?” the Brothel director asked. “What do you think?”

Einara gazed at the tablet screen. A young man in bed, head thrown back and robe open just enough to expose a muscled chest and thigh. It looked like one of the posed shots the director kept for each member of her stable, the gallery from which Upstart patrons chose their pleasures.

But this boy didn’t work here; she’d never seen him before. And there was something a little too abandoned in his expression, something dangerous. She imagined him rearing up off the bed and striding over to take her by the shoulders, letting the robe fall as he came. How his eyes would blaze. How tight and warm his grip would be.

It was strange to feel a flicker of attraction for anyone. She didn’t let it show on her face. “I don’t know him, Fir’n. Is he in streams?”

Hulda chuckled. “No. This is the one I told you about. Councillor Linbeck’s little friend—our vital and dangerous ally.”

“Him? Tilrey Bronn?” Einara tried to reconcile what she was seeing with what Hulda had told her about Councillor Gádden’s secretary. A bright young man who’d been to Harbour and spoke the language. He was the one who’d discovered the existence of people like her, Harbourers sent to infiltrate Oslov. So he was also the danger that Hulda protected Einara from, the reason she had to do (or appear to do) everything Hulda said.

She’d imagined Tilrey Bronn a little like her trainer, Artur, beady-eyed and intense. Nothing like _this_. “He looks like a whore,” she said. “He is a whore, isn’t he?”

“He spent years as a kettle boy, the bed partner of two General Magistrates. The photos are from that time.” Hulda sank down on the couch beside Einara and tipped the younger woman’s chin up. “How do you think he charmed Linbeck?” A stroke on the cheek. “Pretty and deadly, much like yourself.”

Einara cast her eyes down, but she didn’t pull away. “When will I meet him?” The thought gave her a small, exquisite shiver down her spine. Anyone who could splay himself out that way for a lover and then engineer power plays in the Council was versatile indeed. And skilled in pretending, though probably not as skilled as herself.

Hulda plucked the tablet from her hand. “Not any time soon, my love. I’m showing you so you know what we have to work with—or against. I see Bronn now and then, but those are exclusive meetings, not for you.”

“Why do I need to know what he looks like, then?” Einara tried not to let the disappointment show. Try as she would, she couldn’t help fantasizing about going places and meeting new people. She’d been cooped up in this building for years, forbidden even to step outside, right smack in the middle of a city that she’d only seen once briefly from the window of a mag-car.

Hulda’s finger traced the seam of Einara’s lips. “I’m old, sweet girl. If I happened to die unexpectedly, you might need to take my place. Which means you’d need to deal directly with Tilrey Bronn, which means you should be able to recognize him.”

Einara opened her lips and sucked on the finger automatically. _Take my place._ It was the first time Hulda had so strongly suggested she might be grooming Einara as her successor, both at the Brothel and in the True Hearth.

Einara’s breathing quickened. In the several months since Irin Dartán’s death—or disappearance, as it was still officially considered—she’d been seeing fewer patrons and spending more time with Hulda, sucking up the woman’s knowledge. Making herself indispensable in every way she could. But Hulda was so cautious and close-mouthed that it was hard to tell when you were winning her trust.

After Hulda removed the finger, she said, “I can’t meet Secretary Bronn until you die, then?”

The old woman laughed, stroking Einara’s hair back from her forehead. “You sound eager for that to happen. Do you really think running this place is so easy?”

Another rush of elation, but Einara didn’t let it show. “I didn’t mean anything like that, Fir’n. I’m curious about Bronn, that’s all.”

“Understandably. But he works in the light, clearing a path for us in the Council. High Upstarts trust him. Too much contact with any of us, down here in our dark and sordid depths, would endanger that trust.”

Einara couldn’t repress a snort. “Sordid depths? Looking at that picture, I don’t see how his work’s much different from ours.”

“You’re not wrong.” The director’s voice was growing lower, more intimate. “His tools are similar. But it’s best not to draw his Upstart friends’ attention to that likeness. They believe in clear boundaries—Strutter versus Drudge, the Brothel versus the world beyond the Brothel. They think by limiting our movements they can keep their own weaknesses safe inside the cordon, too.”

“I have so much to learn from you, Fir’n,” Einara murmured submissively. It was true, but she learned fast. If Tilrey Bronn had changed his fate, she could, too.

Hulda’s small, hooded eyes bored into hers. “Don’t give me your fake humility, girl. You haven’t even passed your first real test yet.”

Einara reached for Hulda’s hand. Caressed it, brought it to her lips. “Maybe that’s because you haven’t told me what the test is.”

“Oh, we’re getting to that.” The woman drew in her breath. “Those eyes of yours. You are the very devil sometimes.”

“Am I?” Einara asked innocently, her hand creeping under Hulda’s robe.

The whole time she thought of the golden boy spread out on the bed, looking so eager to be touched and probably feeling nothing. If he could seize power by the neck and throttle it and make it his, then so could she.


	2. Drowned

_Year 355_

The Painted Boy let his track pants and briefs fall to the floor and climbed up on the vinyl-padded table, his head thrumming with the sap he’d drunk. “How do you want me, Fir?”

Fir Professor Gelmedyn, chief of the Food Bureau and chair of the University’s Botanical Faculty, couldn’t seem to stop fidgeting. Maybe the presence of Svant, the slope-bellied, coolly insolent tattooist, made him nervous. “Why don’t you, uh, stretch out so I can see better?” he said. “There’s so _much_ of it already.”

The Painted Boy, whose name had once been Kai, rolled on his side and stretched, giving the professor a good look at the colors that rippled over his naked body. He had thirteen tattoos now, none bigger than a fist. Most were simple markings—men’s initials, often in florid, Feudal-style script. A few were more inventive designs, fanciful family crests and the like. Stupid stuff dreamed up by Upstarts who’d seen things like that in books.

All of the tattoos were in areas the Painted Boy could cover with clothes when he wasn’t working. In his occasional sober hours, he liked to think of his body as a fuck you to the Republic of Oslov. The officials who came monthly from the Sector to inspect the Brothel knew why he was called the Painted Boy—it was no secret—but as long as he kept the ink under wraps, they didn’t cite anyone for illicit body modification.

Gelmedyn touched the left nipple, where Fir Councillor Lindahl had placed his mark—a golden and black sunflower with curling, flamelike petals that formed his initials. Privately, the Painted Boy thought it was Svant’s best work, worthy of someone more likable than Councillor Lindahl.

“It’s so _big_ ,” the professor said, sounding half-awed and half-disgusted. “What did Lindahl give the director for that?”

The Painted Boy let his lids droop. “I don’t have anything to do with the transactions, Fir.”

Gelmedyn should have known that. The Painted Boy was one of the house’s coddled Jewels, and his job began and ended with letting men enact their fantasies— _any_ fantasies, within specified limits—on his body. In return, the director handled the patrons and the payment and let him drown himself as deep in his patrons’ gifts of sap as he liked. Which was very deep.

Svant said in his gritty voice, “Yours’ll be smaller, Fir. If I could, I suggest a calf. Nothing there yet.”

“No?” Pursing his lips, Gelmedyn motioned to the Painted Boy to roll over.

The Painted Boy rolled. It was a kind suggestion; the needles would hurt less on the meat of his calf than on a shin. What Svant didn’t seem to grasp was that, with the doses he drank these days, pain was barely a consideration.

“Hmm.” A cautious finger traced a circle on his right calf, just below the knee. “Here, perhaps. I wish his thighs weren’t so . . . cluttered.” The hand reached up to stroke an ass-cheek, fingers tightening in a familiar squeeze. “And _this_ is really off limits?”

“Like the director told you, Fir,” Svant said, imperturbable. “That part of him’s unavailable.”

“Saving it for a very special patron, is she? Or just for this, I suppose.” Gelmedyn’s fingers traced one of the fresh welts from yesterday’s session with Councillor Gourmanian.

The Painted Boy shivered despite himself, his body recalling the pain that he’d been too sweet-drowned to feel acutely at the time. No matter how deep he drowned the sensations of his work, there was always some residue. “Could I have another dip, Fir? Please?”

Gelmedyn was always stingy with the sap until the end of their sessions. He held a cupped hand under the Painted Boy’s mouth, and the Painted Boy dipped his head and lapped the sap from the man’s palm, bracing himself on his elbows. “Thank you,” he said, already feeling the sting of Gourmanian’s belting recede.

Gelmedyn grunted, pitying or disapproving. “Will it hurt so much, then? This process?”

The Painted Boy rose onto all fours. “Oh, it always hurts, Fir,” he said, raising his hips and letting his flaccid cock dangle heavily between his legs. “ _So_ much.”

“Not the way I do it. Never heard you complain, neither.” Svant was on the other side of the table, fetching the razor and the antiseptic.

Why couldn’t the fool keep his mouth shut? The Painted Boy had a role to play before he slid off into the sweetness where all discomfort was a distant haze. “But that’s the price one pays for the honor of wearing the mark of a great man,” he said, stretching languidly under the bright lights. He was marked all over, not just with tattoos but with little remembrances of belts and whips and paddles and restraints, and he knew Gelmedyn was looking closely at the other men’s handiwork.

What people said about the Painted Boy was that he liked pain—craved it, even. Some patrons thought he craved pain as a way to punish himself for disgracing his parents, who were Upstarts and had expected him to be one, too. The notion seemed to give them moral satisfaction. Others thought the Painted Boy was just twisted in the head, a freak of nature. He didn’t discourage any of these beliefs. Why bother?

“Svant,” he said, “could you find a pillow or something to help me stay in position? Assuming the Fir wants his mark on the calf?”

Every time he said “mark,” he heard Gelmedyn inhale sharply. Now a hand twined possessively around his right ankle, and the professor said. “Yes, I think that will do. That way I’ll see my mark when I take you from behind.”

“Oh yes, Fir.” The Painted Boy let his knees fall farther apart, anticipating the itching prickle on his skin. Svant was right; on the scale of pains he had experienced, this one was low. But his head was already floating away from his body, so perhaps he wouldn’t feel it at all. He was grateful when Svant made him kneel up and placed a large, firm pillow under his belly, taking the pressure off his arms.

“May I hold his hand while it happens?” Gelmedyn asked—already reaching for it, though Svant hadn’t even applied the stencil yet. The Upstart’s voice was full of excited trepidation, as if he were the one who was going to have his skin pierced. They always took such vicarious pleasure in seeing the Painted Boy undergo the process, imagining him as a sacrifice in some barbaric religious rite. Sometimes he and Svant laughed about it afterward.

“Of course.” The Painted Boy opened his hand to accept the older man’s, already planning how he would squeeze it tight, as if in agony, when he wanted another nip of sap. The process wouldn’t be painful, no, but oh, it would be dull. And boredom was the bane of his existence.

***

Lars, the understeward, admitted Einara to the Painted Boy’s room. She was waiting on the narrow bed, motionless in the dark, when the door opened.

“Easy there.” That was the tattooist, who was on the books as a scut boy. He was helping the taller man over the threshold, half supporting him and panting under his weight. Either it had been a rough session, or the boy was drowned deep as a shipwreck.

The motion-activated ceiling light clicked on. The tattooist stopped short, goggling at Einara. “You got business here, girl?”

The Painted Boy’s heavy lids fluttered open. It took him a moment to focus on her, but when he did, his moss-green eyes were surprisingly aware. “’S the director’s little favorite.”

Einara simply looked back, and the boy’s lips shaped themselves into the sad facsimile of a devilish leer. He pushed Svant away, swaying but keeping his footing, and crossed to the bed. “Hey, girl.”

He sank down beside Einara, wincing, and closed his eyes. When he opened them and spoke again, his words were no longer slurred. “Hulda send me a little gift for being a good whore?”

“No.” Lord of light, Einara hated addicts. There were plenty here, but by all reports, Kai Meirthal was the furthest gone. He didn’t even socialize with the other boys, leaving his room only to do his mandated workouts or occasionally to languish in a corner of the staff lounge and watch his peers at their card games with glazed eyes. The other boys mocked him behind his back and sometimes to his face, something they didn’t do to any of the other Jewels. Word was that he drank upward of two V a day, most of it private gifts from the powerful patrons who left him bruised and striped with welts.

“Why haven’t you simply cut him off?” Einara had asked Hulda when they discussed him, a few days earlier.

The Brothel director sighed. “Easier said than done. He’s an earner, that boy, and he’s got anger and entitlement issues, and I don’t want to wade into that mess. This is why I need a second-in-command, an enforcer.”

_That’s me._ Einara was embarking on her eighth test of skill and loyalty in the past year—the hardest one yet, according to Hulda. She would pass it.

“Svant,” she said. “Empty his pockets.”

The tattooist’s small eyes flicked to her. “Who says?”

“Who do you think?” She drew herself up, her voice as cold as Hulda’s. “Fir’n Director wants the contents of his pockets delivered to her.”

Svant looked shocked, but he knew her special status with Hulda. “Up,” he told Kai.

Kai didn’t get up. His pale eyes opened on Einara. For the first time, she saw what his patrons must see—the full, sensual lips; the firm chin; the wide-set eyes like a lazy predator’s, just slightly enhanced with dark liner. The chestnut hair, a little too long and curling at the ends. He looked like sex incarnate.

“What new bullshit is this?” he said.

In some other life, a lot of girls had probably lost their minds over Kai Meirthal, and he’d probably treated them like trash. Kai was a “behavioral challenge,” Hulda had explained, because the other Meirthals were Upstarts who’d expected him to follow in their footsteps. When he was Lowered instead, due to borderline test scores, he’d dealt with his shame by embracing it wholeheartedly.

He’d had so many opportunities in life, this beautiful boy, and he’d thrown them all away. Seeing him collapsed in a corner of the lounge, or hearing about the marks of ownership that covered his body, Einara had sometimes felt pity for him. Close up, though, he was just a prettier version of every arrogant Oslov male who had ever hurt her.

She nodded at Svant. “Go on.”

“Kid.” Facing the boy, Svant extended both hands in a gesture of apology. Then he bent, yanked Kai to his feet, and shoved him against the wall.

Kai tried to resist, but his body was still noodly with sap, its sleek muscles mainly for show. The smaller man frisked him efficiently, released him, and handed Einara three vials of golden-brown liquid, all full.

Dark flecks showed when she held one to the light. Top quality. She handed the vials to Svant. “Take these to the director. Say they’re from me. If she doesn’t get them, I’ll know.”

“Wait!” As Svant turned to leave, Kai reeled after him, taking rolling, underwater steps. “You can’t!” He grabbed for Svant, all the languor gone, his face twisted in despair. “Those are mine!”

“Sorry, lad.” Svant whisked the door shut in his face.

“Fuck.” Kai slammed a palm against the bland white door, then slid into a sitting position against it. “Fuck. What the fuck, bitch? You can’t do that.”

The size of him and the growl in his voice made Einara tense, memories of drunken soldiers flitting dangerously close to the surface. She inhaled and exhaled, reminding herself that she’d killed and buried a grown man less than two years ago.

Anyway, this was only another whore, a helpless one at that. “I imagine you have more stashed in this room,” she said, eyes on his. “After we talk, Lars will confiscate it. If he finds nothing, he’ll search again under my supervision. I’m good with hiding places.”

“Bet you are.” Kai rubbed a hand across his mouth, his eyes glittering with rage. He wore only track pants and a T-shirt, like most off-duty staff, and she could see the fading purple that restraints had left on his wrists and ankles. “If Hulda wants something, tell her to come herself and not send an Outer bitch in her place.”

“I’m your only friend now. So you might want to be a little politer to me.”

A harsh laugh. “If you’re my only friend, I’m truly screwed.”

Einara was starting to wonder if she’d enjoy making the Painted Boy suffer as much as Upstarts apparently did, if for different reasons. Did she enjoy suffering? Not when she’d killed Irin, but this was different.

“You already know what Fir’n Director wants from you, Kai Meirthal,” she said calmly. “You’ve known for years. The whole reason you are where you are is that you wouldn’t cooperate when she asked nicely.”

“Oh fuck, that again?” Kai scrubbed fingers through his hair. “I explained this. It’s not that I won’t cooperate. I _can’t_. I haven’t seen Bors Dartán for practically two years, and he’d never spill his Int/Sec secrets to me. Not now, not then. More likely he’d report me—and Hulda, too, though she’s his aunt. Hulda knows all that. Don’t know what she’s got into her head now.”

Hulda had prepared Einara for this response. “Perhaps you should trust that the director knows what she’s doing,” she said.

“This _is_ about Bors, right?” Kai sprawled lower against the door. “I tol’ her and told her. Bors only came here because we were schoolmates and it made him feel special to stick his dick in me. Hulda let him do it for nothing because she thought I could soften him up, get secrets she could sell, but that was never gonna happen. Bors Dartán’s touchy as a hungry raven, and he’s incorruptible.”

Einara allowed scorn to creep into her expression. “You don’t think you’re capable of corrupting one silly little desk worker?”

“You don’t know him.”

“Hulda tells me he was in love with you.”

Kai laughed so forcefully he started coughing. “Bors Dartán? _Love_? Sounds like you haven’t met the man. Anyway, I got real patrons now, ones that pay whatever she wants. Not sure why she’s bringing this up again.”

Einara waited for his wheezes to subside. “Since you became a Jewel, Bors has come here a few times, asking after you. Fir’n Director thinks he’s worried about you.”

“Yeah, well.” Kai rose heavily, using the wall for support, and made his way over to the sink opposite the bed. The rooms where he saw patrons were luxurious, but his own room was a few paces long and wide, just like Einara’s—a windowless cell.

“Did the director tell you everything?” He splashed water on his face and slicked it through his hair. “I _tried_ with Bors. Then, because I wasn’t getting anywhere, Hulda decided I wasn’t ‘cooperating,’ and that’s when she started sending me to the patrons who just wanted to kick the shit out of me.”

Einara knew Hulda could be merciless. “That must have been hard,” she said, trying to sound sympathetic.

Kai turned to her, his face transformed by a nasty grin. His teeth were white and perfectly even. “It was supposed to be a punishment, but I turned it into a promotion. Turns out I’m real good at being hurt. Councillor Gourmanian introduced me to all his friends with the same tastes, and now I’m a Jewel. Do you know what that means, little Outer?”

He sat down beside Einara, closer this time, his sap-breath in her face. “It means Hulda can’t afford to lose me, whether she admits it or not. So be a good girl and run and get my three V back. Because if you don’t, I’ll get so sick I can’t work, and Councillor Gourmanian and Councillor Lindahl and the others won’t be amused when I tell them why.”

This tactic was no surprise, either. “The sap will kill you, sooner or later,” Einara said as neutrally as if she were observing that the sun was shining beyond the Brothel walls. “You do realize that, Kai?”

Kai snorted, but his eyes dropped from hers. “Don’t call me that.”

“Isn’t it your name?” She knew how it felt to leave a name behind.

“It’s the name my parents gave me.” His mouth twisted. “I was curious about you, Outer girl, but now I’m sick of you. Get the fuck out of my room, and don’t come back unless you’re bringing me my property.”

Einara stood up, none too fast. “You don’t have property. Everything in this room belongs to the Republic of Oslov.”

“Right, right, including me. What a fucking patriot you are, and not even one of us, not really.” He stuck a pillow under his head and rolled onto his back. “Tell Hulda what I told you. She plays her card, I play mine. Now get out.”

Einara paused in the doorway. There was no point in pushing too hard right now. The young man needed time to realize he wasn’t getting his dosage back, and then to marinate in his forced sobriety. But she did ask, “Wouldn’t you like to do something besides slowly kill yourself, Kai?”

The question wasn’t rhetorical. Einara wasn’t happy her mother and sister had died in a nuclear blast, but she was happy to have a reason for every breath she took: vengeance. Not having _any_ purpose was painful to imagine.

From the bed, a derisive laugh. “Shows how much you know. Kai’s been dead a long time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize pre-emptively for my lack of expertise in tattoos and being tattooed; all details come from the bounty of Google. :) Thank you for reading, and stay safe out there, everyone! More soon. <3


	3. Battle of Wills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't know if I can continue posting twice a week, but for now I'm into this story, and I wanted to get this long chapter up. Thanks for reading!

The Painted Boy hurt.

He’d been in withdrawal before, but never for so long. He told himself the symptoms were all in his head, but he couldn’t untense, even in a warm bath. When he managed to fall asleep, he woke with his fists clenched and his jaw sore from grinding. When he tried to eat, his throat closed, stomach acid flooding his mouth.

He kept getting a weird sensation that people were stalking him, flitting nearer in the corner of his eye. In the gym, he came close to clocking a boy who stepped too abruptly into his space.

If he hung on a little longer, maybe he’d get through the worst of it. He knew from talking to some of his older colleagues that even a heavy sap habit could be broken. But he didn’t want to get through the worst of it. He wanted his numbness back. He liked his life the way it was.

_Wouldn’t you like to do something besides slowly kill yourself, Kai?_

The gall of the Outer bitch asking him that. Upstart blood flowed in his veins. He’d had his whole life in front of him—marriage to his childhood sweetheart, Vreni, a Programming post in the Bureau of Labor like his mom and dad, kids and grandkids. He was good at sports and games, attractive to everybody, popular. Then the Notification board decided to make an example of him. Every year, a few children of Upstart parents ended up Drudges just to prove the system was fair, and that year Kai was the designated victim. Not his fault. Bors got lucky, and he got unlucky, and that was that.

Vreni didn’t wait even a year after the Notification to dump Kai. He didn’t blame her any more than he blamed himself for ending up in this shithole. At least here he was of use, and he could fill the gaping hole inside him without stealing or begging or inconveniencing anyone.

Until now, anyway. Not that the director could totally cut him off; he could still beg little nips off patrons to make the work more bearable. But it was never as deep a cushion as he needed for the hard knocks, and he didn’t dare push his luck by asking for a whole V to drink at one go. The patrons didn’t know what kind of tolerance he had.

And so, as his cushion of sap dissolved, the Painted Boy lost the placid, resigned composure that made him so sought after. At his session with Fir Councillor Ekorin, he squirmed and swore under his breath while he was being fucked. With Fir Councillor Lindahl, he yelped during a flogging until he had to be gagged. When Fir Gelmedyn proudly touched the fresh tattoo on his calf, he flinched and cussed. Even simply being restrained made him itchy and resistant.

“What’s gotten into you, sweetheart?” the professor asked sadly. The Painted Boy turned his face to the wall. He didn’t dare admit that his voracious appetite for pain was mostly a myth; without it, he had no unique selling point.

They all still tipped him in sap, of course—two or three V per session, sometimes even four. But there was a new routine now. Lars or Svant tailed the Painted Boy back to his room and frisked him, relieving him of his sweet relief. When he demanded to see the director about this treatment, he came up against a wall. The director was busy, he was told. He could see Einara if he liked.

Who the fuck had made that girl the queen of all whoredom? When she first got here, she was so shy she couldn’t even open her mouth to say, “Pass the rice.” She was still pretty in the soft, pale, yielding way she’d been then, but she held up her head like Hulda now, and her eyes were ice cold. She would show him no mercy.

The Painted Boy didn’t want to tattle. Playing your patrons against the Brothel keeper was always a bad idea. But after three days and nights of deprivation, he reached his limit.

Gourmanian liked to shackle the Painted Boy’s wrists to the head of the bed and hook his knees over a steel bar, splaying him out. Sometimes he had the Brothel staff arrange the Painted Boy this way an hour or so before his arrival, then train a cam on him. The Painted Boy waited in this position, hips rolled up and thighs spread, while Gourmanian was in his office or drinking tea with his family or whatever he did. Inked body on display, hole greased and open, and the whole thing beamed as a live feed to Gourmanian’s handheld, because the Councillor got off on just knowing he was ready.

With a full vial of sap inside him, this ritual was just bearable. Now? Not even close.

On this day, when Gourmanian finally arrived, the Painted Boy was whimpering. His thighs were killing him; he would have slid his knees off the bar if they hadn’t been strapped to it.

Gourmanian barely seemed to notice anything different. “Ready for me, are you?”

The Painted Boy managed to nod. The sooner they got started, the sooner he would be out of this hellish position. But when the Councillor tugged off his belt and snapped it in the air, he cried out in alarm: “Oh fuck, Fir. No!”

“No?” The Councillor stared at him, confused, because the Painted Boy never said no to anything. “What’s wrong, love? Don’t you want it?”

The Painted Boy closed his eyes and felt a pulse pounding in his temples. Back in school, he’d known Gourmanian’s niece—a wispy little thing with a massive crush on him. They’d hooked up at a party, on the dingy lino of a storeroom. In those days, no one would ever have tried something with him that he didn’t want. Now he had to plead.

“I’m dry, Fir. No, not that way.” Green hells, he could barely even move. “I need a dip. _Please._ It hurts.”

Gourmanian sighed gustily and drew out a vial, “What’s the problem? I thought we gave you more than enough to keep you happy.”

After he’d lapped the half-V out of Gourmanian’s hand, the Painted Boy spilled most of the story. How his Fir’s generous gifts of sap had been confiscated, night after night. How he was being forced into a cruel and pointless sobriety.

He knew better than to mention Bors Dartán; some secrets had to be kept inside the Brothel. He had no idea to whom Hulda wanted to sell Bors’s intel, but it might be someone well placed in the Sector. Councillors were always spying on each other. With Hulda’s connections, reporting her for corruption could only backfire on him.

Gourmanian’s heavy brows beetled with concern, but not as much concern as the Painted Boy had hoped for. “I do worry sometimes about how deep you drown yourself, love,” he said. “What’s your usual daily dosage, anyway?”

“Two, Fir.” Two and a half, sometimes three.

Again the concerned look. “Don’t you think you should cut down a little? For your own sake?”

The Painted Boy wanted to snap these straps and shackles like kitchen string and go wring the Councillor’s neck. These were the sorts of urges his two and a half daily vials usually saved him from.

“Of course,” he said, forcibly converting his grimace of pain into a concerned expression to match Gourmanian’s. “But, you know, a _little_. A _gradual_ cutdown. Would you mind, Fir, just, just—just getting me out of these fucking restraints? And talking to the director for me? Because if this goes on another second, I’m gonna scream, and not in the way you like.”

***

“Well, he’s made his move,” Hulda said over tea in her quarters the following afternoon. “Councillor Gourmanian came to see me last night on his way out, _very concerned_ about his favorite.”

Einara’s throat tightened. “What did you do?” She’d never dealt directly with a disgruntled Councillor, unless you counted her occasional patron Besha Linbeck. He’d been miffed when he learned she’d passed his stray confessions about Tilrey Bronn to the True Hearth, and for nearly a year he’d shunned her. When he returned, he was colder, and he never discussed the fact that they were all on the same side now.

Hulda looked more amused than worried. “I told the Councillor I’ve been monitoring Kai Meirthal’s sap intake for several months now, and it is, frankly, alarming.” She folded her hands, the picture of patronizing rectitude. “Any other employer would have sent the boy to moral rehab by now. If he keeps on the way he has, he’ll drown himself so deep he never comes back up.”

Einara could imagine how this speech had landed with the Councillor. “Did you ask him to stop giving the boy sap?”

“Oh no, no. Nothing like that.” A sly smile. “Never ask for anything directly. But it’s easy to arouse guilt in these men; they’ve all been taught to feel responsible for the fate of the world. I just set out the facts and lamented poor Kai’s likely fate if he was allowed to continue. I gave Fir Councillor a report signed by our staff medic, to make it official, and then I sat back and waited.”

Einara could imagine how it had all played out. Hulda’s hazel eyes were still bright in her withered face; when she wanted to, she could be animated and persuasive. The Councillor didn’t stand a chance.

Hulda jabbed a finger at her. “There! You’re smiling. No, no, don’t hide it. You’re allowed to be a human being.”

Einara’s hand flew up to cover her mouth. Smiling was something she did to please patrons, and occasionally Hulda. She didn’t like how it looked on her—contorted. Vulnerable. “What did the Councillor say to that?” she asked, forcing her face back into attentive neutrality.

“He was shocked, _shocked_ , to hear the situation was so dire. He hadn’t had the slightest idea the boy was sapping so heavily, or even that a human being _could_ survive doses in excess of two V a day.” Hulda didn’t hide her own delight. “He vowed to stop enabling the boy’s addiction, and he promised to make sure all his friends did the same.”

They had Kai cornered, then. But Einara suspected the hard part was still to come. “He’ll break,” she said, picking up her tea tumbler. “But what about after? Kai says it’s useless to approach your nephew for intel, even dangerous. I don’t think he’s lying about that.”

“He’s not lying about how he sees the situation.” Hulda spread her hands. “But I know my nephew, and Kai has more power than he realizes. It’s your job to show him how to use it. Give him reasons to join the living again. Time to step up, my girl.”

Even Einara, for all her strength of purpose, sometimes had trouble getting out of bed to face another day in this place. What reason was she supposed to give Kai to “join the living”? But she kept her chin up as she nodded.

***

“Show me my mark,” Enrik Lindahl said. His voice had that breathless quality it always got when he was het up and hard, finished with the punishment and ready to start the fucking part of the evening.

“I—give me a minute, Fir.” The Painted Boy’s ass and thighs were on fire from the new stripes Lindahl had laid there. If he rolled over on his back to show the Fir the sunflower tattoo on his nipple, he wouldn’t be able to keep quiet. He’d managed to avoid the gag this time, but only by sinking his teeth into the meat of his arm with each stroke.

He clenched his fists and just breathed, using every technique he knew to keep the pain at a safe remove. Could a whipping really hurt this much without drawing blood, each individual stroke searing as if it flayed? Maybe Councillor Lindahl had overstepped the rules again. Or maybe the Painted Boy just wasn’t used to taking it sober.

Everybody thought he liked this—and he did, sometimes, with a high enough dose to mellow the experience. He didn’t mind offering himself, didn’t mind being disciplined and humiliated—he deserved that treatment, especially from Strutters. He was unworthy. He was nothing. But this _pain._ There was nowhere to hide from it. It made his vision blur and his voice go ragged.

“Please—I just need a little nip, Fir.” Lindahl usually refused to give him sap during their sessions, saying, _I want you present_. But too fucking bad. “Just to soften it. Take the edge off.”

Fingertips stroked his flank just below one of the welts, more impatient than tender. “Is it really so bad?”

The Painted Boy drew in a hissing breath. “ _Please_ , Fir.”

“I’m afraid not,” Lindahl said in his prim way. “We aren’t doing ‘little nips’ anymore, or anything else. Well, I suppose I can have you like this.” He reached over the Painted Boy for the lube on the nightstand. “I’ll be careful, but perhaps you should have been.”

Words weren’t making any sense, jarring and clashing in the Painted Boy’s head. It was one thing to be told no, but not _anymore_? Nothing ever changed in the identical rooms where he worked. He was what he was. They were what they were.

“Whaddyou mean?” It came out like a single word. He swallowed hard. “Don’ understand, Fir.”

The Councillor’s voice above him was cold and brittle. “You’re hurting yourself, Kai. When I gave you a vial or two after our sessions, I had no idea you were abusing my generosity. Gourmanian and I are both very concerned about you, and the director—”

“The fucking director?” Before he quite knew what was happening, the Painted Boy was rearing up, bracing himself and rising to his knees to face the Councillor. Pain hit him like a lash, over and over with each breath. “She’s a liar! I’m not abusing anything! I don’t sap any more than you do.”

Lindahl’s eyes hazed over with worry—for his own safety or for the Painted Boy’s, it was hard to say. “Oh? Three vials a day?” he asked, a furrow forming between his handsome brows. “I didn’t know a person _could_ drink that much.”

“I don’t!” So Hulda had shared the results of her private tox screenings, breaking the unspoken rules of this place. The Painted Boy didn’t have the energy to hate her. He crawled toward the Councillor, wincing. “I never have that much, I swear, she’s lying, and I _need_ it! I fucking need it! You can’t do that to me and just, just—”

Lindahl edged away. He was young for a Councillor, and in decent shape, but no fighter. “I can get you an oral painkiller that will be safe,” he said, the furrow deepening. “Or topical cream—there’s some in the bathroom, I think.”

The Painted Boy was familiar with the full array of products in the bathroom and what they could and couldn’t do. “I don’t want that,” he gritted out, ready to spit with rage—probably the most effective attack he was capable of right now. “You know what I need, and you _owe_ it to me. I’ve been so good for you, Fir, night after night. Is there anybody who’s better at playing the slow pupil in your sadistic schoolmaster fantasies? I beg for it. I never complain, even when you make me bleed.”

“I don’t—”

“Oh, have you forgotten that ‘one time,’ Fir? Or was it two times? Fuck Gourmanian, and fuck the director and her moralizing. She’s always got her own agenda. You need to take _care_ of me.”

“The director cares about your health, as do I.” On his feet now, Lindahl looked ready to bolt, as if he expected the Painted Boy to lurch out of bed and come after him. “I know this is hard, love. But sometimes doing the right thing _is_ hard. Have you seen a counselor yet? They help with this sort of thing.”

The condescension hurt almost as much as the stripes on his thighs. As if Lindahl didn’t regularly drown himself in sap, just like all the Councillors. As if the very notion of addiction was foreign and distasteful, something that only happened to dirty whores. The Painted Boy might as well be a schoolboy again for real, coming home late on a free-night stinking of rotgut and getting a lecture from his dad on the virtues of self-discipline.

_Fuck it._ He hadn’t tossed away his future and his self-respect for that.

He grabbed the only object in reach—the cordless clock on the nightstand—and hurled it at the Councillor. Long ago, in school sports, he’d had a good arm.

Lindahl dodged, but the clock nicked his temple, drawing a bark of surprise. He backed away from the bed, eyes wide with fright. “I’m calling security. You need to be restrained.”

“Yeah, you’ll like that, won’t you?” The Painted Boy stayed where he was, hand raised as if he might throw something else. Watching Lindahl skitter out of the room was almost, _almost_ satisfying.

When the Councillor was gone, he collapsed on his belly and sucked in a deep breath. The surge of adrenaline had drowned out the pain. Now it was back, sinking long, pointed nails into him.

“I’m sorry, Fir,” the Painted Boy called out to the empty room. The hole inside him kept getting deeper, no bottom to hit. If he asked often enough, if he asked the right way, they _had_ to say yes. “Come back and fuck me. I’ve always been good for you. Come back. _Please_.”

***

The Brothel’s monthly inspection never had a scheduled date or time, but usually Hulda received a quiet advance warning. So Einara wasn’t surprised to find herself standing in the doorway of her room at an ungodly morning hour, watching the two inspectors make their way swiftly and efficiently down the line.

Normally, days didn’t begin in the Brothel till nearly noon. It was half-past nine now. Every doorway in Einara’s corridor held a yawning boy in pajamas or a robe, scowling or woozy with sleep.

The inspectors were different people every time, low-level employees of the Bureau of Diversions. They had access to common and private areas of the Brothel alike. They looked over your body—clothed—for obvious signs of illness and addiction, and they sometimes took your temperature or blood pressure and asked you questions. If they saw anything they didn’t like, off you went to the infirmary for a more invasive exam.

When Einara first arrived, she’d found these inspections mortifying—worse than seeing patrons, even, because the inspectors never looked you in the eye. Their voices were toneless, the same for every whore, as if they saw not people lined up in the corridor but machines.

When she told Hulda this, the woman laughed. “Would you rather die of a curable disease, then?”

Now Einara knew that Brothel staffers’ bodies were an important benchmark of public health, in a sense public property. The constant scrutiny set the Sanctioned apart from the illicit brothels where disease flourished. It was a guarantee that important citizens could come here for stress relief that wouldn’t risk their wellbeing.

And maybe, too, it was just another way to degrade the staff, to remind them they’d made poor life choices.

Since becoming Hulda’s assistant, Einara had moved into the cul-de-sac where the Jewels had their rooms, far from the booming dormitories of lower-level staff. Here, everybody had a nickname and a specialty. In the doorway opposite hers slumped Baby, a nineteen-year-old who could pass for sixteen. He leaned over to whisper something to Matthias the Throat, who had supposedly delivered the best fellatio in the city for the past fifteen years. Matthias glanced at Einara, looking naked without his usual eyeliner. He smirked.

She didn’t have an official nickname, but she knew her unsmiling demeanor had gotten her a reputation. When she arrived, they’d called her “the barbarian” to her face. More recently, she’d heard a few of the boys calling her “Nettle Cunt”—in stealthy whispers, because they knew she was Hulda’s favorite.

Vulgar insult or not, she rather liked it. Nettles kept intruders away.

To her left lived Opal, who was dark complexioned; and Topaz, blond with strange amber eyes; and Ruby, the redhead; and Diamond, a hard-eyed, secretly sweet-tempered lad who was expert at dominating patrons. To her right were Flint, another dominant; and Flax, a gorgeous, soft-eyed boy who played the submissive role to perfection. He lacked the Painted Boy’s tolerance for pain, though.

And where _was_ the Painted Boy? Einara’s eyes swept over Kai’s closed door, her heart thudding against her ribs. No one ever missed inspection.

She couldn’t go check; the inspector was just a few doors down. She craned over and caught Opal’s eye, angling her head toward the closed door.

Opal responded with a series of nonverbal signals that were too fast for her to interpret. Finally he leaned way over, keeping one eye on the inspector, and hissed, “Went mental on a Councillor last night. Infirmary.”

_Shit._ As they both straightened again, pretending to be good little whores, Einara swallowed down bile. Kai hadn’t reacted well to their new gambit. And Hulda, who must know about his acting out, hadn’t told her, which meant the director was standing by to see how Einara would react. Letting her take control of an increasingly perilous situation.

Kai was too valuable a Jewel for the Brothel to lose. And if his former friend in Int/Sec really was incorruptible, they might find they’d broken him for nothing.

Einara calmed her breathing and forced her nervous system back under control. She’d survived worse situations. ( _Burying Irin’s body in the snow, all that blood_.) As soon as the inspection was over, she’d go to the infirmary and find some way to take advantage of the boy at his weakest point.

She felt no pity for him. She would shape him into an instrument to serve Hulda’s will—and someday her own.

***

The Painted Boy hadn’t slept all night.

He lay prone on the narrow infirmary bed, a light robe covering his nakedness, padded leather straps holding his wrists to the side rail. They were kinder than the restraints he was used to, but the lack of mobility was agonizing.

When he was admitted, the on-duty nurse had fed him a painkiller and applied a topical spray to his welts, but the effects of both had worn off several hours ago. Chills wracked him, despite the tropical heat that pervaded the Brothel. Every movement sent ripples of itching pain through his ass and thighs. The welts felt like they were festering, and he had to keep reminding himself that sap deprivation was playing with his head. _Have you seen a counselor yet?_

Lindahl. _Fuck._ The moralizing Councillor was exactly the type to hold a grudge. He might even try to get the Painted Boy sent to moral rehab, where the possibility of ever sucking down another V would disappear. He’d been such an idiot to yield to an impulse of rage, no matter how good throwing that clock had felt.

Maybe Gourmanian could talk Lindahl down. Maybe Hulda could. The Painted Boy cleared his throat and said loudly and clearly, “I wanna talk to the director.” He’d been doing that periodically all night, because everyone knew Hulda had hidden mics around the Brothel. No one had answered him yet, but it was worth a try.

This time, though, he heard the hiss of a door opening. Light footsteps. And then a woman’s voice, close to him: “You’ll have to settle for me instead.”

The Painted Boy reared up against his restraints, fighting down a surge of surprising shame at being seen this way by Hulda’s favorite. _Outer bitch. Nettle Cunt._ No, he wouldn’t call her that. He wanted to know what time it was. He wanted out of this bed. He wanted a fucking V.

“Why won’t Hulda see me?” he asked in a smaller voice. It was time to pull the humility card. Beg, offer anything, until he got Gourmanian alone and could set things straight with him ( _assuming he could_ ).

Instead of answering, the young woman bent over him. Her hair and skin smelled like his—same soap and shampoo, standard issue—but her hands were slender and soft. It took him a moment to realize she was unbuckling his restraints. He went still to make it easier.

When she’d freed both his hands, he exhaled a huge breath and curled into himself, hugging his knees. Green hells, that felt better, but his _back._ If only he could roll over, or on his side. Look her in the eye, at least. Distract her from the mess under the robe.

Fingertips touched him through the fabric, gentle. “We have an ointment that’s good for abrasions like this, better than the spray. Applying it might hurt a bit, though.”

“Fuck, yes. Please.” The words just slipped out. “Anything.”

She stepped out and returned, her weight depressing the mattress beside him. “I’ll try not to hurt you. It’ll sting at first, though, so lie still.”

She peeled the robe away, and the Painted Boy shivered as the welts met the air. The pressure of her hand on his thigh, light as it was, made him clench his fists and suck in his breath.

But the ointment she smoothed onto him was cool. “Keep going,” he whispered between his teeth, feeling a blissful numbness spread under her hands.

She knew how to use those hands, massaging the ointment into his inflamed flesh with the lightest of touches. He closed his eyes and let his outrage slip gradually away, relaxing into the soothing powers of the ointment and her touch.

“Better?”

“Yes.” She was working on his ass now, fingers moving in small circles. He was dimly aware of being naked and powerless in an enemy’s hands, but he was numb again, and nothing else mattered. “You’re so good at that.”

“Yes. So I’m told.” No pride, as if she didn’t give a shit what patrons said about her. She hovered above him, practically straddling his hips, and he shuddered at the tickle of her braid on the small of his back, but it was a pleasant shudder. God, the numbness. It was opening a space in his head where there’d been only buzzing chaos for what felt like months.

At last, she lowered the robe back over him. “Try rolling on your side.”

The Painted Boy did. The pain still made him squeeze his eyes shut, but it faded quickly, and his aching joints thanked him for the change of position.

“I see now why you drink so much sap,” she said. “It must make all this easier.”

“No fucking kidding.” The Painted Boy laughed weakly. “Are you naïve, or just obtuse because you’re from the Wastes?”

“Where I come from, we wouldn’t let this happen. A fine, strong man like you—it’s a waste.”

“Oh, it’s a waste, is it? So sad.” The Painted Boy was so done with false pity and expressions of concern. “Tell that to your mistress, the one who started this. It was a dirty trick freaking out Gourmanian that way. He’s my patron to handle.”

“You complained to him.” Her voice hardened. “Fir’n Director had to tell him something. And by the way, she’s not my ‘mistress.’”

“Might as well be. She says jump, you ask how high. Anyway, she didn’t have to tell Gourmanian _that_.”

“Nothing she said was a lie.”

“I never in my life drank three V a day—that would be nuts.” Well, he didn’t drink three V _most_ days, but that wasn’t the point. She didn’t really care how deep he drowned himself, and they both knew it.

“I can’t do it,” he said, shaking his head against the sweat-damp pillow. “Told you already, there’s no way to turn Bors Dartán into a traitor. No way he gives up his precious integrity for sap or sex or anything else. Nothing you can offer.”

“No?” She was still close beside him, her hip a warm weight against his back. It might have been a turn-on if anything turned him on anymore. “Hulda says the spy’s lonely.”

“Well, of course he’s lonely. A Raised Laborer? He’s never gonna fit in. That’s just how it works.” The Painted Boy knew from bitter experience that it went the other way, too. Before he came here, his Drudge coworkers had treated him with stiff respect, but none of them wanted to be friends. Fallen from above, he was a freak in their eyes.

“Not just lonely in general.” Her voice dropped lower, more intimate. “Lonely for _you_.”

Previous encounters with Bors flashed through the Painted Boy’s head. Always apologizing, the little spy had to be coaxed to take what he came to the Brothel for. He refused to let Kai—who wasn’t yet painted in those days—call him “Fir.” He was obsessed with the possibility of saving Kai from this place, always suggesting other postings. He tipped Kai with sap, but he didn’t understand the first thing about addiction. It was sweet, really.

“He likes me, yeah. He might—he might at least listen.” Then the Painted Boy remembered everything that had changed in the past two-plus years. “My body, though. When he sees the ink, he’ll freak. He’s delicate like that. He’s a good little Oslov, not a Decadent bone in his body.”

A small huff. “What does that even mean, a ‘good Oslov’? Are you not a good Oslov?”

Oh, she was naïve, all right, or maybe just strange—it must be an Outer thing. He didn’t even try to summon sarcasm; it took too much effort. “No, sweetheart. I’m Decadence incarnate. Or at least that’s what Bors will think.”

“Didn’t you say he wanted to save you, last time we talked? That’s exactly why you need to show him your markings.”

“He did want to save me. After this, I don’t know.” The Painted Boy couldn’t imagine anyone being stupid enough to think he was redeemable. But Bors did have certain obtuse tendencies, just like this Outer girl.

Unless she was playing dumb to catch him off guard. Hulda didn’t choose stupid protégées.

“It’s worth a try,” he said, already hating the idea of showing his former schoolmate why he was called the Painted Boy. “But first, some conditions. Hulda has to get me back on my old dosage. She needs to tell Gourmanian she overreacted.”

“So you’re laying down conditions already.” The girl sighed, the breath warm on his shoulder where his robe had slipped down. “Do you want to live to see thirty-five, Kai Meirthal?”

_Don’t call me that._ But he had to focus; they were finally getting somewhere. “Not particularly, and I doubt the director will give a fuck what happens to me when I stop being pretty. How about two and a half a day?”

She snorted. “One and a half.”

“Two and a quarter.”

“Two.”

Not enough, but he would make it work. “And I start getting it right now.”

“You start getting it _after_ you talk to Bors Dartán.” She stroked his shoulder; he felt the outline of each fingertip through the thin material. “You need to have your wits about you. You’ll leave the Brothel and show up at the spy’s apartment. That should get his attention.”

“Leave the Brothel?” Though he did have leave privileges, he never used them. Anywhere he went, he might meet people he’d known in his old life. “I don’t even know where Bors lives.”

“We do. Svant will drive you.”

“I can’t . . . I need a dose, okay? Just to tide me over.” But the Painted Boy was starting to feel drowsy, the urgency of his need fading. Maybe he could hold out a day or so longer.

“You seem to have survived this long.”

She sounded so far above him, almost icy. Maybe she had indeed been playing dumb, knocking him off his guard—with some success.

“You’re the boss, Fir’n Einara,” he mumbled. “Follow your instructions to the letter. But if I can’t work a miracle, I still get it, okay? My allowance?”

“You still get your dose.” Was it his imagination, or did she sound disappointed? “For now.”


	4. Drained

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: politics, worldbuilding, and trees ahead! I need to set some stuff up; we'll be back to pure, unadulterated H/C in the next chapter. :)
> 
> Also, I'm aware that "Sanctioned Sweetbush" sounds a tad naughty. ;) But IRL we call the places where they tap maple trees for syrup "sugarbushes," so ... why not? :) Thanks for reading! <3
> 
> Update 6-6-20: I've been figuring out some stuff about the Free Northmen, so I changed Bors's description of their goals to fit my new understanding. This is all covered again in Chap. 7.

On the day of his meeting with Bors Dartán, the Painted Boy lay in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling.

He’d been given a day and night to “recuperate” in his room after his stint restrained in the infirmary, which would have been fine if he’d also been given a few vials to float away on. When Lars brought him a glass of beer with dinner, he downed it and asked for more, leaving the food untouched. No dice.

Now he was supposed to rise and shower and dress, and the whole world felt too solid to endure, let alone interact with. Although he valued the privacy of his single room, he hated the tiny, windowless space and the sterile white corridor. The parts of the Brothel that patrons saw were sumptuously appointed with carpeting, mood lighting, and knotty pine, but the staff dorms were as depressing as anything he’d ever seen in this city. _You are nothing. Hate yourself_ , the very air seemed to whisper.

Apparently Hulda had told the inspectors he was in the process of detox and not fit for company, so at least he’d been spared their scrutiny for now.

After a while—time flowed away like water—the Painted Boy managed to sit up. Somewhat later, he rose and fetched the robe and sandals he needed for the showers, but he didn’t put them on. Something had caught his eye, freezing him in place—his reflection.

He couldn’t imagine Bors or anyone else wanting the person he saw in the mirror above the sink: febrile, purple-shadowed eyes; dry lips; greasy hair. If he pivoted, he would get a full view of the panorama of bruises and welts, just starting to heal.

Lindahl actually had drawn blood in two spots, it turned out. According to Einara, when Hulda confronted the Councillor with his infringement of the rules, his anger turned to remorse, so he wouldn’t make a stink over the “temper tantrum.” Chances were, the Painted Boy would be back for his scheduled session next ten-day.

After all, Lindhal had made such an investment in that elaborate sunflower tattoo. It drew the Painted Boy’s eye, brilliant and flourishing on skin that looked bloodless, except for the purple of his nipple at the center.

From there, his eyes skipped down to Gourmanian’s scarlet dragon on his left hip, and from there to Ekorin’s sea anemone on his lower left thigh. Young Councillor Verán’s thistle faced it on the right thigh, and a little higher up prowled the wolfish creature that Davita Lindblom had designed herself. On his right hip was Zenteivva’s indigo cursive. Above it, at his waist, the facsimile of a Feudal woodprint that Lindthardt had fretted endlessly over.

Luzian István, the current General Magistrate, had adorned him with a small, vivid green arrow and initials just below the collarbone. The Magistrate didn’t even get off on pain, as far as the Painted Boy could tell; he just wanted to be able to say he’d left his mark where all his friends had.

This body was where the Republic’s elite deposited their seed and their frustrations. Their canvas. Their creation.

He turned slowly to examine Lállstrom’s mark on the small of his back, just above the curve of his ass. Then the freshest ink, the professor’s initials, on his calf. The parts of him that most often took the lash were kept free of artwork, at least for now. What happened when he ran out of room?

Or rather, when Hulda ran out of room. His body was real estate she sold—for sap, for influence, for secrets? He didn’t ask and tried not to care.

Swinging around again to look into his own mirrored eyes, the Painted Boy reminded himself he had let this happen. A few people were forced or sold into the Brothel. Others came to avoid moral rehab or a prison sentence. He had come of his own free will, wanting nothing but a warm place to drown himself.

Now he was high and dry. Seeing his new body for the first time with sober eyes, he wanted to puke. To break the mirror. To break himself.

How the fuck was he supposed to seduce anyone?

***

The committee chamber was bigger than any room should be. The ceiling vaulted impossibly high. Voices echoed, stretching and distorting in Bors Dartán’s head.

He’d been too nervous to eat lunch, but now his blood sugar was dipping, and any minute they’d call him to the podium and ask him questions and expect him to be coherent. What if he couldn’t remember the script? His throat closed.

He sat at the side table with the other expert witnesses, trying not to glance up into the amphitheater to his right, which was half-full of stiff-backed men and women in long white robes. Councillors, every one of them! This was only an ag committee meeting, not a full session in the Council Chamber. But it was the closest to the center of power that Bors had ever come. He could feel it pulsing all around him, cold and forbidding. _Unworthy. You don’t belong._

At least Tilrey Bronn wasn’t here. Bors had heard through the rumor mill that the former kettle boy often sat in sessions as his Councillor lover’s proxy, taking notes to bring back to him. One glimpse of that beautiful, jeering face would be more than enough to render Bors speechless with shame for his past mistakes.

He tried to keep his eyes on Councillor Niko Karishkov, who was questioning the director of the Sanctioned Sweetbush.

“Are you really telling us, Fir’n Grenfeill, that the pines aren’t capable of renewing themselves?” Karishkov asked with an arch of one elegant black brow. “We pour incredible resources into their maintenance.”

Murmurs that sounded like agreement rose from the audience, but the Sweetbush director didn’t look fazed. She was a stocky woman past middle age, with a frizzy white braid wound around her head and a ferocious stare. Bors wondered if she spent most of her time out on the Wastes, in the Sweetbush’s highly classified location, tending to the pines in person. That might be nice—to have mostly trees for company.

“Indeed,” she said, lips pursed. “And we do that because we depend on their yield of sap—some would say too much, Fir Councillor.”

Bors had come to distrust Councillor Karishkov over the past few years, but he still admired his one-time mentor’s impeccable posture and demeanor. The only sign the man gave of his disapproval was a head tilt, his face smooth. “I wasn’t aware you’d come here to lecture us on our morals, Fir’n Director.”

Laughter bounced around the room. The walls were _marble_ , for green’s sake. And that ceiling—why did the ancestors build it so high? To intimidate people? Heating this room must cost a fortune, despite all the solar panels on the roofs of the Sector.

Bors longed to be back in his safe corner of the Blinding Tank, far down in the bowels of the Int/Sec complex. There he saw without being seen, on the hunt for seditious talk and suspicious gatherings in the public corridors and cafeterias and the not-so-public dormitories of Thurskein. Here, with all these high names? He was going to make an absolute ass of himself.

If only he cared as little about offending people as the Sweetbush director seemed to. “I’m not here to lecture anyone on morals, Councillor,” she snapped. “That’s not my area of expertise. I’m here for one reason: to warn you that the muirthorn pine is a delicate species that may not cooperate with your yield targets. Which, as you’ve all seen on the charts” —she gestured at a projection behind her— “keep trending upward. The pines need to be _managed,_ Councillors, and we’re not currently managing them. We’re overworking them—perhaps ruining them.”

“That’s a strong word,” Karishkov said. “There’s a reason for those rising targets. You’re well aware that our foreign policy objectives—”

“I am aware, Fir Councillor, and I don’t presume to tell you to stop trading sap with Harbour. That’s out of my bailiwick. What I _can_ tell you is that our Sweetbush was designed to serve the needs of domestic consumption only. When you add a foreign market to the equation? The demand becomes unsustainable.”

Bors tried to pay attention, but they were getting back into the science stuff, all graphs and percentages. The director warned that the pines in the Sanctioned Sweetbush might go dry if they didn’t get “between seven and fifteen years of rest and renewal.” The upshot was that she wanted the committee to approve the siting and planting of a new, backup Sanctioned Sweetbush, perhaps several.

Bors’s ears pricked up at that. He was here to explain why it couldn’t happen.

A Councillor in the audience asked a long question about planting times and yields, which received an even longer answer from Fir’n Grenfeill. Bors’s eyes were glazing over again by the time Karishkov cut the director short.

“We appreciate that you have all the facts at your fingertips, Evorina,” he said, the faintest growl in his voice. “But I’ve tried to make clear that this is a matter not just of the wellbeing of _trees_ , but of national security.”

He swung toward the witness table, where his eyes locked on Bors. “Fir Dartán, Int/Sec analyst level three, would you offer us your expert testimony?”

Bors was so lightheaded he could barely feel his feet on the floor. The world spun into a fuzz of light and dark as he climbed the steps to take the podium that Grenfeill had relinquished. Somehow he made it to the chair.

Thank everything green, Karishkov was still doing most of the talking. Bors’s head pulsed with terror as his mentor explained how Bors had spent the past two years surveilling Thurskein, where he tracked the activities of “primitivist fringe elements.”

“For reasons of security,” the Councillor said, “I won’t tell you much about this new plague of nihilists, except to say they’ve infiltrated the sporting groups that make up the very backbone of worker society. Analyst Dartán, would you tell us about the prime objective of the Laborers who call themselves Free Northmen?”

The Free Northmen had many and sometimes contradictory objectives, from what Bors could tell. The teenage malcontents among them wanted to bring down the Republic, to burn Redda, to possess the riches of Redda, to exile every Councillor, to destroy every factory, to sabotage every info-net, to sow general chaos. But that was just idle talk, quickly quelled by their leadership. The group’s elders were obsessed with reviving the old religion, and they saw the government’s control of sap—in their minds, a sacred substance—as an ongoing sacrilege.

Such nuances were beyond the scope of this meeting, so he focused on what Karishkov wanted to hear. “They hope to control the sap trade, Fir Councillor.”

A hand shot up in the audience, and Bors quailed. “All outlaws want to control the sap trade,” an imperious Councillor said. “What’s new here?”

“We’re getting to that.” Karishkov turned to Bors again, with that dignified gaze that made Bors feel like a squashed bug. “And how do they hope to accomplish this?”

This was the bombshell Bors had been sent to deliver. He swallowed hard, not letting himself glance into the amphitheater. “The Free Northmen hope to control the source of sap, Fir Councillor. They’ve tried on eight occasions to establish illicit sweetbushes of their own, all of which we’ve destroyed. They have also, uh, made a concerted effort to discover the classified location of the Sanctioned Sweetbush. We believe that if they succeed, they might attempt sabotage.”

This had exactly the effect Bors feared. Hands rose all over the amphitheater. Voices expressed anger, consternation, incredulity, while Karishkov tried in vain to keep order.

“Why haven’t we rounded up these shirkers?” a quavering voice demanded from the first row. “They shouldn’t be able to leave ’Skein at all, let alone gallivant around the Wastes planting trees. Why aren’t we controlling our workers?”

Early in his Thurskein investigation, Bors had asked Karishkov the same question—why didn’t they round up the traitors and exile the lot of them, as the law dictated? Now he stared down at his hands, his cheeks burning, while Karishkov reassured the Councillors that the seditious element was under control and explained some of the reasons for keeping the investigation classified.

The truth was, the more Free Northmen you rounded up and put in cells, the more you created. While they hadn’t accomplished much yet, their strength was in their dark, doomy appeal. They scoffed at propriety in flagrant ways, the men growing beards like Outers while the women let their long hair hang loose. Young people from some of the best Thurskein families had joined.

And occasionally the Northmen were shockingly coherent. When they ranted about the Decadence of Redda, about the ways Upstarts used sap to control the whole population, Bors found himself almost agreeing with them. Even lunatics could make good points.

“Fir Dartán? Are you listening?”

Bors’s head jerked up. “Of course, Fir Councillor. You asked, uh—how does all this relate to Fir’n Director Grenfeill’s request to establish additional Sanctioned Sweetbushes to help us meet our production targets?”

The Councillors were all looking at him. So many eyes. One called out without even bothering to raise her hand: “We see where you’re going with this, Niko.”

Karishkov gestured his colleague into silence. “Bors?”

A low, intimate, friendly voice. The Councillor wanted Bors to think they were all on the same side, working toward the same goals. He’d never bothered to ask Bors’s opinion on the Republic’s current policy of producing enough sap to keep everyone in Redda hooked for life—and then selling the overflow to Harbourers so they could sample Oslov’s worst habit, too.

Until he heard Fir’n Grenfeill’s testimony today, Bors hadn’t known the pines were running dry. But he wasn’t surprised. The drug sapped everyone who consumed it, draining them of their vital force. Why shouldn’t it sap the organisms that produced it, too?

He tried not to think of his old friend Kai—rolling around in a bed in the Sanctioned Brothel with half-lidded eyes, every other word slurred, begging Bors for another V. He focused on what he was supposed to say, what he _had_ to say.

“Based on our ongoing investigation, we view the establishment of new sweetbushes as an unacceptable security risk. Right now, the Sanctioned Sweetbush is the most strategically vital spot in the Republic. Its secrecy is its strength.”

There. He’d said it. A grove of scrubby little pines, somewhere out on the Wastes, was more important than a city full of productive human beings. People needed sap, so sap somehow mattered more than people.

Maybe Bors’s thinking on this issue was muddled, his brain slowed by his recalcitrant Laborer genetic makeup. Maybe the Free Northmen’s madness was rubbing off on him. Even having such thoughts was dangerous. He was grateful when Karishkov took over again, primed to address the Councillors’ many questions and objections.

But Bors couldn’t miss the look that Fir’n Director Grenfeill gave him when he was finally permitted to leave the podium. Disgusted and worse—pitying. As if she’d somehow expected him to think for himself and find a way to save her poor pine trees.

***

It was funny how things got stuck in Bors’s head. He’d never in his life seen or touched a precious muirthorn pine; the closest he’d gotten to any tree growing in the wild was the window of an airplane. But he couldn’t stop hearing Fir’n Grenfeill’s words: _A delicate species. Between seven and fifteen years of rest and renewal_.

Karishkov had told him to take the evening off as a reward for his successful performance at the meeting. The committee had voted against the creation of new sweetbushes.

Bors didn’t particularly want time off. He felt lonely whenever he was away from his vid monitors and his targets for more than a few hours. But Karishkov was his superior and had given him a direct order, so he packed up without argument and went to the tram stop.

 _Rest and renewal._ He could use some of that, he thought, clinging to the pole and watching the old buildings of Ring Two glide past, their ornate cornices encrusted with snow. He was delicate, too, but no one fretted about his wellbeing.

That was the thing about the Free Northmen. They were obsessed with physical prowess, always holding races and other silly contests to see who was the strongest, but they fretted over one another, too. The leader, who called himself Aleks Snowblind, was always asking his second-in-command questions like “How are you? Are you okay?” The two of them were lovers, but the concern went beyond that. Aleks could tackle a man brutally to the ground, then turn around and display an almost maternal tenderness toward his friends and followers. Twice Bors had seen him cry.

Imagine having a friend or lover like that. Imagine being able to show your feelings in public without everyone staring at you in silent horror.

As Bors stepped off the tram in Ring Four, he thought again fleetingly of Kai. The last time he’d visited the Brothel, just to check on his old schoolmate, his aunt had cocked her head and told him Kai was still out of his price range unless he wanted to “do a favor” for her. Bors knew better than to ask what the favor was. Aunt Hulda was little better than a common criminal, always out for personal profit at the Republic’s expense.

“I hope Kai’s all right,” he’d said, unable to help himself. Then he’d turned away before his aunt could see the tears rising in his eyes.

If they were in Thurskein, if they were Free Northmen, he might have been able to go right up to Kai and put a hand on his shoulder and look into his eyes and ask, _Are you okay?_

Snow was falling now, light and frigid on Bors’s cheeks. He headed for his building’s lift, then thought of the Free Northmen’s physical contests and veered toward the stairs instead. Six flights up. Pathetically out of shape—how Aleks would scoff at him!—he was sweat-soaked and panting by the time he reached his corridor.

Something dark on the hallway’s evenly lit whiteness made him stop short. A tall man in a long coat sat slumped against a door, probably in some kind of stupor.

A vagrant in Ring Four! It was a disgrace, a sign the Constables weren’t patroling properly. And—was that _his_ door? Unacceptable!

Shaking off his lethargy, Bors marched up to the miscreant. The man’s tweed-faced coat was an Upstart garment, obviously stolen. He reached for the handheld in his pocket; it was time for a citizen’s arrest. “What exactly do you think you’re—”

Words died in his throat as the vagrant turned to face him.

It was Kai. He was as sleek and beautiful as Bors remembered, but his eyes were shadowed, his mouth drawn tight with pain.

Their eyes locked, and the pained expression loosened into a smile that made something deep inside Bors shatter. “Hey, Bors,” Kai said with a jaunty wave. “Did you miss me?”


	5. Reunion

The Painted Boy barely had to pretend. The trembling voice and twitchy limbs were all his. When he tried to rise from the floor of the corridor, the movement stung his healing flesh and made his head swim. He accepted the hand that Bors extended to help him.

Poor Bors—his old schoolmate was scrawny and nondescript as ever, gaping up at the Painted Boy in abject surprise. He couldn’t seem to summon a single word.

“Are you going to let me in?” The Painted Boy smiled as cruelly as he dared. “Or are you afraid I’ll track my Decadence all over your apartment?”

Bors shut his mouth at last. He used his hand-chip to open the door, moving like a robot, and ushered the Painted Boy inside.

No, not the Painted Boy. He was supposed to be Kai now. _You have to be who you were_ , Einara had told him just before sending him off in the car with Svant. _Be the man he wants, the man he remembers, just long enough to hook him. And then you’ll get your dose._

So, fine. Kai might not be able to stop the trembling, but he could summon a few shreds of his old swagger.

“Nice digs,” he said with a cursory glance around the sad little apartment, and flopped down on the lone couch without removing his boots. It felt good to rest again. “You coming up in the world, Borsha?”

Bors stowed his outergear and stood before Kai, still staring. Maybe he was confused by the sarcasm. Maybe he could tell there was no shirt under the long coat. “Why are you dressed like a Strutter?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

Kai fingered the tweed placket; it was a nice coat they’d given him to wear. Warm. Green hells, he hadn’t been outdoors in—a year? Two? “It’s not mine,” he said with studied casualness. “I snuck out the front door of the Brothel and grabbed it from the cloakroom on my way. No one’s coming after me—not yet, anyway.”

“Snuck out?” Bors wrung his hands. “After you? I thought you had leave privileges.”

“Oh, I do. Did.” Kai let genuine despair seep into his voice, crowding out the false bravado. “I used to have a lot of things I don’t have anymore.” He locked eyes with Bors. “A nice supply of V, for instance. Would you have one lying around here, by any chance?”

Bors looked stricken. “I don’t drink sap, Kai. I only ever had vials so I could bring them to you.”

“Well, it was worth a try.” Kai buried his face in his hands. “Bors, your aunt is trying to kill me.”

“She’s what?” Bors sank onto the couch as if his legs could no longer hold him up, but he kept nearly a meter between them. Maybe he really did think Decadence was infectious.

Kai proceeded with the script Einara had given him—just enough truth and just enough lies. “Your aunt’s a tyrant. She’s why I ran away. I need your help. You’re the only person who, who—” The tears rose abruptly, and he wiped his eyes on his sleeve and let his voice falter. “Since you stopped coming to see me, things’ve gotten bad, Borsha.”

“Hulda told me—”

“That I have a higher class of patrons now? That’s true.” _Don’t show him everything right away,_ Einara had instructed. _Let him imagine the details._ “Councillors, most of them. Men with certain tastes.” His shudder wasn’t feigned. “They’re very fond of me, and until now they were very generous. Then your aunt got it into her head that I wasn’t working hard enough for my keep, and she started confiscating their gifts. Cutting me off. I ask her why she’s doing this to me, and she just tells me I should ask _you_. That it’s all your fault.” His voice broke on the last word.

Bors bristled, his backbone stiffening with puny outrage. “How can she say that? I would never hurt you, and I don’t have fuck-all to do with her or the Brothel!”

Kai hung his head. “All I know is, she said to ask you. Maybe she wants to see you, talk to you—dunno. Don’ know anything.” He hugged the coat tighter around himself. “I don’t try to think for myself anymore, Borsha. No point. All I know is, she’s punishing me for something I didn’t do and you apparently did.”

“I didn’t do a thing to Hulda!” But Bors sounded more pained than angry now, as if Kai’s distress weighed on him. “The important thing is, she can’t force you to do anything. You’re a citizen, you have rights. I could go into the courts and find someone to advocate for you, even bring a grievance—”

Kai laughed bitterly. “Great idea. Get the law involved. They’d take me out of the Sanctioned and send me straight to moral rehab, and then I’d have no choice about getting clean.”

“Would that be the worst thing?” Bors’s voice was small again, tremulous. “I know it’s not what you want. But maybe Hulda cut you off because . . . it’s hurting you?”

Always the same refrain: _for your own good_. Kai had no more energy to rage against it; no one who hadn’t been sweet-drowned understood. Anyway, Einara had told him to take a different tack.

“Your aunt doesn’t give two fucks about my health,” he said. “You think I don’t want to stop sapping?”

He raised his eyes to Bors’s again, grateful for the tears blurring his schoolmate’s image. “I know what it’s doing to me, and if I could quit, I would. But I haven’t had a dose in four days, and I may not survive this. I’m dying.”

He waited for Bors to jump in and say he wasn’t literally dying, perhaps to cite some medical manual on the timeline of withdrawal. It would be just like Bors to have memorized one.

But Bors said nothing. His image wavered, and not just with Kai’s tears. Was he actually getting emotional over this?

Slowly and carefully, Kai edged toward the far end of the couch. He touched Bors’s knee, just grazing it with his fingertips.

Bors flinched but didn’t back off. “I’ll talk to my aunt,” he said in a strangled voice. “I’ll take you back to the Brothel, and I’ll talk to her. But Kai—”

His eyes shot upward to fix on Kai’s. When you got close enough, Kai remembered, those muddy little eyes had their own sort of depth, their own beauty. It was all in the watchfulness.

Bors’s hand flitted toward his own neck. “I’ll loan you one of my scarves. You don’t even have a shirt! You must have half frozen out there. Don’t they give you proper clothes?”

“They give me what they want to, when they want to.” Was it time to offer Bors a visual? _Not too fast,_ Einara had said. _Draw it out._ For an Outer, she was very clever about these things.

Kai unfastened the top button of his coat. “It’s not like I need clothes at work, anyway. The whole place is a sauna. I’d almost forgotten it’s cold out.”

“You really haven’t . . . been outside? Even on the terrace? In how long?”

“Since around the last time I saw you. I’m so fucked in the head that I probably wouldn’t even have grabbed this coat if I hadn’t been scared you’d . . . well, see.”

Bors looked like he was trying to peer right through the coat. “See what?”

“You know what they call me, now that I’m a Jewel?” Kai undid another button, finding to his surprise that his reluctance was real. Everyone in the Brothel had seen his decorations, but this was someone he’d known before. “The Painted Boy.”

Bors’s face was bloodless. “Whatever they’ve done to you,” he said in a ghost of a voice, “I’ll help you, Kai. I promise. You’re not hurt, are you? It’s not—she didn’t—”

Kai fingered his third button. “You’re such a delicate flower, Borsha. If I take off this coat, you might faint dead away.”

Bors flushed purple, all bristles again. “I’m not delicate! I’ve seen you naked before. I’ve—we’ve—you know.”

“That was before.” Two buttons left now. “But maybe you’re right, Bors. Maybe you should know what you’re getting into when you try to save me.”

“I said I’d _help_ you. Only you can save yourself.” With a sudden, spastic movement, Bors took hold of Kai’s shoulders and pulled him so close that Kai could feel his hot, quick breaths. “But I need to know, okay? If I’m going to help you, I need to know everything.”

Kai didn’t resist as Bors undid the remaining buttons with trembling fingers. Ripped the coat open and spread the panels apart.

Bors stared.

Kai rolled his shoulders to offer a better view, keeping his own gaze on the wall over Bors’s shoulder. Tears might’ve helped, but an overwhelming disgust at himself and what he was doing had dried his eyes.

At length, he heard Bors make a small, inarticulate sound. Possibly a sob. “Is that legal?”

Kai made his lips curve in a smile. Maybe Bors deserved to be entrapped after all, just for being so clueless. “What do you think?”

“Is it . . . permanent?”

Kai nodded, raising a brow and feeling a little offended on Svant’s behalf. The man was an artist. His work deserved a better canvas, one that people wouldn’t gawk at in horror.

There were no more words from Bors, only ragged breathing. Then arms were folding around Kai’s shoulders, drawing him in.

Kai didn’t resist. When Bors’s face pressed against his collarbone, his fine, flaxen hair tickling Kai’s chin and his body hiding the Councillors’ marks, he did shiver—a long shiver that ran from head to toe.

Back when Bors was seeing Kai at the Brothel, the spy would make sad little attempts to pretend they were lovers. Kai would always laugh and order Bors to treat him like the whore he was. It was more honest that way—and more fun, too, to watch Bors struggling with his own brutal desires.

It didn’t seem so fun to torment Bors now. Maybe Kai’s martyred body had turned traitor on him, because he found his muscles loosening, his whole self melting into the embrace with a soft sigh.

_Make him think you’re his to do what he wants with,_ Einara had said.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Bors’s arms tightened fiercely around him. “ _You_ sorry? You’re not responsible for this. It was done to you.”

“But I could have . . . I should have.” He couldn’t seem to put words together. Tenderness felt good—too good. For an instant, the Painted Boy felt something like actual submission, a burning need to give his life over to someone strong-minded who might actually be able to do something constructive with it.

Was that Bors? Hulda? Einara? He didn’t know. Every now and then he had one of these pseudo-epiphanies that made him vow to change himself—or, failing that, to consign himself entirely to someone else’s will. In the end, though, all his resolutions collapsed. No one ever seemed worthy of telling him what to do, and he went back to finding his life’s purpose at the bottom of a vial.

No, he wouldn’t give his life to Bors Dartán. But he did know right now, with a warm gush of certainty, that he wanted to give his life to something bigger than sap.

“Would you really do it?” he asked, breathing the words into Bors’s hair. “Would you help me?”

***

When Einara arrived in the lobby of the Brothel, she found Bors Dartán sitting on a bench with Kai slumped against him, tousled dark head on Bors’s shoulder.

She was so relieved she couldn’t see straight. Bors needed to think Kai had come to him of his own volition, but leaving Kai on his own, even briefly, was a risk. If he’d decided to step off a building, Hulda would have held her responsible.

Bors scowled at her, one arm wrapped protectively around his old friend. “I want to see my aunt. That’s what I told him.” He indicated the low-level whore staffing the reception desk.

“Your aunt sent me in her place, Fir.” Einara wondered if he could guess she was an Outer, or if he was always this rude. Probably the latter. “We’re very grateful you’ve returned Kai to us.”

Bors was exactly as Hulda had described him, and his physical resemblance to Irin was a little unnerving. Einara hoped all the cunning had stayed on Hulda and Irin’s side of the family, leaving this poor little man with nothing but moral earnestness.

“I didn’t ‘return’ him. He’s not a _thing._ ” Bors elbowed Kai, and Kai straightened up. “He’s an Oslov citizen, and he’s in distress. He should be under a doctor’s care.”

“He is.” Einara kept her voice calm and her face imperturbable, just like Hulda. “When was the last time you saw the medic, Kai?”

“Yesterday, and don’t talk down to me.” Kai’s voice was a growl; who knew if he was faking that or not?

In the infirmary, relaxing under her hands, he’d started to act less like a snarling animal and more like a person who might eventually be useful. He hid his better qualities under a sullen-adolescent façade, but she could see now that Hulda was right—Bors had feelings for him.

Still, this was a delicate operation. It hurt to entrust it to someone like Kai, even for a few hours at a time.

Kai shook off Bors and rose, looking steadier on his feet than he had when she sent him off earlier today. “The Fir’s right. I’m in distress because I haven’t had my dose, so don’t say it’s for my own good or you’re taking care of me. You’re _torturing_ me.”

Einara started to object, but Bors broke in, speaking low to her: “I saw what’s under the coat. Are you going to tell me _that’s_ for his own good, too?”

They both glared at her—two Oslov males demanding the deference they’d been raised to expect from social inferiors. Whatever Bors had once been, whatever Kai was now, she suspected they were united in the smug certainty that they were better than she was.

Einara took pleasure in not answering. She drew a vial from the pocket of her fleece and held it out to Kai.

Faster than thought, he snatched it from her—then froze, as if his brain had just caught up, and stared down at the golden-brown sap. “What’s this for? What did I do?”

He was sticking to her script, so Bors wouldn’t guess what the sap was actually a reward for. That showed self-possession, Einara had to admit. “Fir Dartán makes a good point. You deserve some relief.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Bors complained. They both watched Kai close his hands around the vial, cradling it like something he’d defend with his life. “You can’t just keep feeding his habit. There must be kinder ways to get him clean than cutting him off. You could give him, I don’t know, a placebo or something.”

“Who asked you?” Kai snapped. “You don’t know what I need.” His eyes flickered to Einara. “Well, I’m back. Can I go to my room now?”

No matter how desperately he craved his dose, he didn’t want to drink it in front of Bors. The realization brought an odd flush of excitement to Einara’s cheeks. The Painted Boy still had some Upstart pride, underneath it all.

Yes, they could use him. _She_ could use him.

“Drink your dose first,” she said. “We don’t want you fainting on the way to your room.”

Kai’s eyes narrowed to green slits, regarding her with something approaching hatred.

Then he uncorked the vial and poured it straight into his mouth. Bors looked away. Einara watched as the whole V disappeared down Kai’s gullet, not a drop spilled.

When he finished, he tossed the vial at her. She barely caught it, and Kai smiled nastily. “Satisfied? Am I a good boy?”

“Kai.” Bors’s voice was pleading. “There must be a better way than begging for V. You could get off it slowly—”

“I assure you, Fir, he’s under medical supervision.” Einara turned to Kai again. “Go to your room. The Fir and I need to talk.”

Kai bridled for a moment, but his eyes were already hazing over with the effect of his dose. “What the fuck. Nice to catch up, Bors—I mean Fir Dartán,” he muttered and left them, trudging across the polished slate and through the curtained door into the Brothel proper. He was barefoot, having left his boots in the coldroom.

The spy wasn’t as skilled at hiding his emotions as Einara had expected. When he turned to her, he was barely keeping his fury under wraps, fists clenched at his sides.

Perhaps the lobby intimidated him, with its high, pitched ceiling and expanses of black slate—a place for high Upstarts, not his kind. Einara knew the feeling.

“As for you, Fir,” she said smoothly, subserviently, “the director will be happy to receive you tomorrow at four. She’s reserved a room for you and the Painted Boy at that time.”

Bors was so pale his blushes were almost apocalyptic. “I want to see _her._ My Aunt Hulda. Now.”

“And say what, Fir? That you want to tell her how to manage her staff?” Einara allowed herself to arch a brow, but she kept her tone respectful. The spy had to be managed with the utmost care.

“She’s my aunt, for fuck’s sake. I want to know what she’s playing at. Why she’d do that to Kai and—and blame me.” The small man looked desolate. “She knows I can’t tell her anything about my work. That’s what she wants, isn’t it—tips? Dirt on powerful people? She’s never even _asked_ me anything.”

_Interesting._ Until now, Einara had assumed this all started with Bors refusing to answer Hulda’s inquiries. He was a blood relative, after all—why not try the direct route?

Hulda must have known Bors was a tough nut to crack, as Kai had warned, so she’d taken a roundabout approach to him. Either that, or she simply knew that withholding information always made you more powerful than requesting it.

It was a good principle to live by. Einara looked straight at the spy—wide-eyed, guileless. “This is a place to relax and forget your daily troubles, Fir,” she said. “I hope when you come back, day after tomorrow, you will do just that. Goodbye for now.”

***

“You did nice work,” Hulda said. “I’m proud.”

Einara’s mouth twisted. “Getting Bors here is just the first step, and Kai did most of it.”

“You should be more confident, sweetheart. It’ll make you more attractive, and hence more powerful.”

“More attractive?”

“ _Even_ more attractive.” Hulda paused in her work to wink at her. The Brothel keeper was busy sorting through the sap vials she’d received from generous patrons over the past ten-day: raising them to the light to assess quantity and purity, grouping them in racks, and banding and bagging them for delivery to her criminal contacts in the Outer Ring. The steward traditionally took care of this job, but Hulda liked handling the currency herself.

Imagine being this person someday, squinting at a vial and gloating over the color of the liquid inside. Einara felt lucky to have a higher calling, even if it meant she died young.

Of course, Hulda had her own higher calling, one she presumably would be willing to die for. But Dissidence made so little sense to Einara. It seemed to involve punishing Upstarts, or taking their power away, or making Oslov live up to ideals that no society could or should live up to, given that the strong lorded it over the weak in every society that ever existed. The best the weak could hope for was to band together, to love each other as she’d loved her little sister, and perhaps, occasionally and if they got lucky, to make the strong pay.

Laborers like Hulda complained about inequality and unfairness. But compared with the peasants of Einara’s homeland, they might as well be kings—well fed, warm, relatively content. As she saw it, the only actual reason for Oslovs to rebel was the one they never acknowledged: Their leaders forced them to live in a cold wasteland at the top of the world when there was a paradise of green, fertile earth waiting below.

With all the power in the world, they’d chosen to lock themselves up in a snow globe, and none of them understood how bizarrely narrow their lives were. It made all this plotting seem as unreal as a children’s game.

“I’m confident, but I’m not reckless,” she said, offering the director a box of rubber bands. “I still don’t trust Kai not to tell the spy everything he knows.”

Hulda scoffed. “The boy wouldn’t risk his dose. Bors may have access to sap, but he’s too moral to let Kai keep drowning himself in it.”

_And we aren’t._ In the lobby, when Bors had suggested finding a safe way to help Kai recover from his addiction, Einara had felt a jab of conscience. She didn’t like seeing a person slowly destroy himself, even if he was an arrogant Oslov twit.

“We’re asking Kai to play a long game, and that’s not easy,” she said. “Sooner or later, he’s going to start wondering why we’re pressing Bors to talk about his counter-Dissidence work, no matter how well we justify it to both of them.”

“Kai will keep his mouth shut,” Hulda said.

“He’s unreliable, and I still don’t see why we can’t listen in on their meeting. You have devices that would be nearly invisible—”

“And Bors would still search the room and find them.” Hulda scowled at a urine-colored vial—a weak dose. “Surveillance is my nephew’s business, my girl, and paranoia is his middle name. No, we can’t risk monitoring them. You’ll just have to trust the Painted Boy to play his role.”

Her eyes on Einara’s were steely as a hawk’s. “It’s your job to groom him for that role till he can play it in his sleep. To half convince him it’s the truth.”

Einara remembered the cruel smile Kai had shot her after she made him humiliate himself by drinking his dose in front of Bors. “He’s volatile, that’s all.”

“If I ever thought otherwise, I would never have given you this challenge. I would have delegated it to someone lesser, or done the job myself.” Hulda stuffed her bundle of vials into a vinyl pouch, then tucked a strand of hair behind Einara’s ear. “I’ve never done well at manipulating Kai, to be honest, because he has contempt for me. But a young, pretty thing like you should be able to get inside his head.”

“Seduce him, you mean?” Einara frowned, thinking back through their interactions. Kai had leered at her when she first approached him, but that seemed like a reflex. He’d leaned into her touch in the infirmary, but he’d been suffering and half-awake then. “Does he even like girls?”

A bark of laughter. “As much as he likes boys—that is, a lot less than he likes sap. It’s up to you whether you want to try using your body to entice him away from his current obsession. It might work, or it might backfire.”

_Wonderful._ “I’m in the dark here, Fir’n Director. You’ve known him longer than I have.”

Einara didn’t add that she had no great expertise in seduction. Most men here needed no “enticement”; they took what they wanted, and she endured them. Massage, disguise, and scheming were her main skills—and murder, of course. She was fairly sure slitting Kai’s throat would be easier than making him like her.

Hulda stroked Einara’s cheek, looking not at all worried. “If I told you exactly what to do, it wouldn’t be a test of your ingenuity. I will say this much: You need to seduce the poor boy on a deeper level than sex. Convince him our goals are his goals.”

“You mean . . . rebellion?” Einara whispered the word, leaning into Hulda’s touch. The director had the whole Brothel swept regularly and carefully for Int/Sec bugs, but you could never be sure. “I didn’t think we were going to tell him. Right now, he thinks you’re just selling secrets to the highest bidder.”

“And it’s safer that way. But if you can bind Kai tight enough to you, he might be ready to become one of us. And if he turns out to be useless . . . well.”

The old woman mimed blowing on a scrap of fluff. Einara shuddered despite herself. Hulda might not wield the same hereditary power as Colonel Thibault in Resurgence, but she was just as ruthless in her own sphere.

The director’s expression softened. “I have faith in your judgment, my dear. You’re no novice.” She kissed Einara on the cheek, then softly on the lips. “Bind Kai to us, my sweet. He may seem pathetic now, but he has potential. Give him something he can believe in more than sap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to catch up a bit on this story, so more in a week! Thank you so much for reading, kudo-ing and/or commenting. Hope everyone is safe and well. <3


	6. Gossip

When Einara showed up at his door the next morning, the Painted Boy didn’t miss a beat. “Are you here with the other half of my allowance? If you aren’t, don’t bother stepping over the threshold.”

She held up a vial, and the Painted Boy breathed a sigh of relief. “In.”

Einara came in. Her dark-gold hair was wet and tied back in a simple tail, and for the first time in a while, it occurred to the Painted Boy to appreciate the curl of her lip, the fierce arch of her brown brows. She looked the part of an Outer who’d as soon slit your throat as suck your cock; patrons must love that.

Stretched on his bed, he held out his hand for the vial. She didn’t give it to him, just sat down in the single hard chair. “You’re looking better.”

“Course I am.” He checked himself, not wanting her to think he didn’t need both those precious vials to stay on an even keel. Thanks to the one he’d gotten yesterday, his all-night session with Magistrate István had been tolerable. Granted, the Magistrate never really hurt the Painted Boy, but he’d still appreciated the old sensation of floating away on a cloud of numbness. Lying heavily on a bed and letting himself be used.

Even now, roughly sixteen hours after the dose that had broken his fast, he felt semi-human. He just needed a re-up.

Hand still out, he summoned his most flirtatious tone, the one he’d often used to get Bors to tip him with sap. “Verdant hells, you’re such a tease. At least give me a dip.”

“Fine. But you’re going to take this one slowly. I want you coherent while we talk.”

Einara held out the vial, but she didn’t let it go. The Painted Boy tugged on it, then shrugged and poked a finger inside. Was that a faint blush on her cheek? _Did_ she blush?

“Mmmm.” He popped the finger in his mouth, then stretched full-length again, savoring the tiny tingle along his nerves. “I’ll need another soon. Now, what d’you want?”

“You’re seeing Dartán at four today. We need to discuss how things will go.”

“Oh, Borsha again. _Fun_ ,” the Painted Boy crooned. She was so tense that he almost wanted to play the braindead harlot just to see how much he could annoy her.

Einara’s mouth tightened. “Listen to me carefully. You’re going to proceed very slowly with the spy—this is a long game. Get his trust first. That means no direct questions, no demands. He’s here because he cares about you, so keep yourself the focus. Tell him you feel better, but you could still be cut off at any time. Make him worry.”

That all made sense, though the Painted Boy cringed inwardly at the prospect of making himself look pathetic to Bors—again. He extended his hand. When she widened her eyes, he said, “Please.”

Einara offered the vial. “It always helps to ask nicely.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Fuck, all he did was beg these days. He poked his finger into the V and sucked on it, luxuriating in the slow, slow tide of numbness.

“How long since you went a whole ten-day without that stuff?”

“Green hells, I dunno. Since I was in school?” He didn’t like her gaze—it felt intense, curious. “Don’t you ever take it? Makes the work a lot easier.”

She said coldly, “Sap doesn’t do much for me.”

For his poor body’s sake, the Painted Boy knew he should be good, but he felt like seeing _her_ uncomfortable for a change. “Maybe that’s ’cause you’re an Outer. How long have you been in this shithole, anyway? You speak so properly—like us, I mean.”

Einara’s eyes hardened. The barb had hit home. “I’ve always spoken ‘properly.’ My mother taught me. My father was an Oslov soldier.”

“Isn’t that nice? A bastard. Or maybe a misbirth—I’m not sure what they’d call you.” The Painted Boy shot her his most dazzling smile. She didn’t like being reminded of her barbarian heritage—a vulnerability to tuck away for future use. “You’re not one of us, anyway. So, go on. What else do I tell Bors?”

Einara pressed her lips together tightly and explained what he had to do. The Painted Boy nodded and tried to look like an attentive pupil. Halfway through, he stuck out his hand and said, “Please” with a shit-eating grin this time, and she gave him his dip without hesitation.

Fuck, Hulda’s business was complicated. He’d always paid as little attention as he could to Sector politics, but now he did his best to retain the details. When Einara finished, he asked, “What does Hulda have against this Bronn guy?”

“Nothing. We’re just using Bronn to reel Bors in—to make him trust you.”

“Bors knows this kettle boy? _I’ve_ never heard of him.” The Painted Boy tried to imagine how Bors, sitting way down in his Int/Sec dungeon and spying on people, could possibly cross paths with a Councillor’s pampered lover. “Did he offend him or something?”

“The less you know, the better. That way your reactions will be genuine.” Einara held out the vial of her own accord, and this time she let it slip from her fingers into his. “Do you think you can manage all that, Kai?”

“In my sleep.” _And don’t call me that._ He tipped the vial greedily into his mouth, eager for every drop. “Bors fucking adores me. What about the rest, though?”

“The rest?”

The Painted Boy rolled his eyes. “You know, the main event. Bors can be shy. Should I get on my knees and grab his cock? Beg him to fuck me? I can show him the lash marks if you want, but he’s not gonna want to hurt me. Not his thing.”

To his surprise, Einara reddened, as if she was imagining him doing all those things and found it disgusting or titillating or who-knew-what. “You need to build a relationship with Bors.”

The Painted Boy stuck his finger in the vial, trying for the last bit at the bottom. “I just described how I build relationships. Look, just say whether you want Bors to fuck me or not. I’ll make it happen, and he’ll think it was his idea.”

“Do _you_ want him to fuck you?” Her mouth formed the words carefully, as if she wasn’t quite comfortable with Oslov profanity. “Or do you want to fuck him?”

What a bizarre question. The Painted Boy was glad he had the pleasant thrum in his head to distract him. “Don’ know if I wanna fuck anybody ever again, honestly. What’s it matter?”

She kept looking at him with those chilly blue eyes. “If you were in a relationship, it would matter. And that’s what Bors wants from you, isn’t it? Not just submission. Something real.”

Something real? What did that even mean? He’d had “something real” with Vreni, they’d been headed for marriage, and look where that ended up.

The Painted Boy remembered how Bors had clung to him in the dingy little apartment. He had to admit it felt good to be embraced without all the usual commands and demands: _Get on your knees, slut. Suck my cock. Turn over. Say you want it._ But a Jewel needs one unique selling point, and his was the power to make men feel both righteous and dirty as they punished him. Anything else he wanted in bed was a dangerous distraction.

It was redundant to explain being a whore to another whore, so he met her gaze with a bold one of his own. “How about you? Do _you_ ever want to get fucked?”

Einara’s face froze. “Your point?”

“You want me to give Bors something real. So, who d’you have something real with? Hulda?” He cracked up at the thought of anyone being attracted to Hulda, the sap making him lightheaded. “I bet she knows how to unfreeze your cold little Outer heart—and other parts.”

“That’s none of your business.” She raised her chin, as severe as ever. “Fir’n Director deserves both our respect. And if _you’d_ learned to please her, or taken the trouble, you wouldn’t be in this position.”

“I don’t think she likes lads.” But the girl had a point. He’d never made the slightest effort to ingratiate himself to Hulda, or made any secret of his disdain for her.

“Fine. I’m an idiot.” The Painted Boy rolled on his back and contemplated the ceiling, ready to float away on his dose. The high felt so good—a mellow summer wind, a warm tub on a cold day, the smile of someone you love. Of course he could manage Bors the way they wanted; had that ever been in doubt? He would play it by ear, his instincts telling him what to do.

“It’s how I was raised, that’s all. Proud. Was a legit question, though,” he added after a moment, aware that his words were starting to bleed together. “If you can ask me who I want to fuck, I can ask you.”

“That’s not what I asked you.” Einara sounded far away. “I don’t care who . . . sparks your interest in your free time. I’m just saying that, when you’re with Bors, you should be natural.”

 _Natural? Free time?_ Neither of those terms made any sense in the Brothel. The Painted Boy opened his mouth to tell her so and fell asleep before he could say another word.

***

The room where they brought Bors to see Kai was the same one, the exact same.

Bors remembered the skylight throwing wan radiance on the white walls, the bed blockading the far end of the narrow space, the chaise and cedar chest holding bottles of lube and stinky massage oil. He’d seen Kai here eight or nine times over the first three years his friend had been in the Brothel. The last had been roughly two years ago.

His aunt clearly remembered the details. She was trying to butter him up, and that chilled him a little.

Kai was waiting for Bors just as he always had—his well-muscled body splayed out on the chaise, lazy and sensual, wearing a thin T-shirt and loose pants that obscured nothing. Bors could even see the little green tattoo just below his collarbone, and the thought of needles marking that silky skin made him shiver.

“Well,” he said harshly, to cover up how he felt, “here I am.”

Kai stretched but didn’t get up. His green eyes, kohl-outlined, fixed on Bors’s. “Here you are.”

It shouldn’t have been this way. At school, Kai had been the envy of everyone—strong and fast and handsome and quick-tongued. Back then, he didn’t know Bors was alive, didn’t dignify his existence with a glance or even an eye-roll or stray jeer.

Bors had a sudden, powerful impulse to lurch across the room and throw his arms around Kai. Instead, he turned away and ran his fingertips along the doorframe, checking for tiny monitoring devices.

“So suspicious,” Kai said in an amused singsong. When Bors pulled the chest over so he could stand on it to reach the light fixture, Kai sighed. “You’re taking for _ev_ er.”

Bors unscrewed the fixture with rapid, practiced motions. It was clean. “I’m just taking basic precautions. I know my aunt. Since she apparently wants something from me, and she’s using you as bait, I’m guessing we can take all the time we want.”

Another sigh, and a creak as Kai stood up. As Bors stepped down from the chest, a pair of large, warm arms slipped themselves around his waist.

He jumped, and Kai stepped away. “I scare you now?”

“Of course not.” Actually, he always had and still did, a little, so tall and strong and sure of himself that Bors felt like a scurrying blind mole. “You seem to be feeling better today,” Bors added ruefully. “Unless you were just pretending to be sick yesterday? To hook me in?”

The languid smile wiped itself from Kai’s face. He looked a little gray. “I wasn’t pretending.” He sat down on the chaise again, wincing a little. “Look, I’ll be honest—I’ve had two V since then. Because I brought you back with me, they’re suddenly being nicer.” He dropped his eyes. “That girl, Hulda’s little lackey, ordering me around—I wish you hadn’t seen that.”

A warmth rose in Bors’s chest, and tears pressed on his eyes. It did hurt to see Kai bowing and scraping even among his peers in this cursed place. “Please,” he said, sitting beside Kai.

He couldn’t finish. _Please hug me. Please put your head on my shoulder again. Please ask me to help you again, like I could help anyone with anything._

After a moment, Kai eased into his space and pressed their foreheads together—his thick brown locks mingling with Bors’s anemic blond ones, his hot breath on Bors’s cheek. “Don’t feel bad for me,” he said. “I was kinda out of my mind yesterday, but I’m better now, Borsha. Promise.”

“But—but—” Bors couldn’t stop a tear from slipping down his cheek. He inched away from Kai and flicked it fiercely with the back of his hand. “But my damned aunt,” he said. “You have to tell me what she wants from me. That’s the whole reason we’re here, right?”

Kai nodded. He looked miserable. “I told her a thousand times you won’t help her, not even with something meaningless. If she were dangling me over a hundred-meter drop, ready to drop me if you didn’t give her a tip she wanted, you’d still say, ‘Sorry, that’s classified.’”

“That’s not—I wouldn’t! That’s ridiculous anyway.” Still, Bors couldn’t help visualizing the scenario. Of course the Republic’s security came first, always, but he wondered what Aleks Snowblind would do if he had to choose between his lover and his cause.

“I do care,” he went on, his voice gaining strength, “and I’ll _listen_ to whatever Hulda has to say. But I serve a higher cause—the security of the Republic, which includes all of us.”

“I know.” Kai didn’t look impressed; clearly he didn’t feel the same heady rush that Bors did every time he spoke or heard that phrase _._ He leaned back on his elbows. “But this isn’t about the security of the Republic, okay? Unless the security of the Republic depends on one trashy little former Councillor’s piece named Tilrey Bronn.”

For an instant, Bors didn’t think he’d heard right. Then sweat prickled on his scalp, and his face and chest burned. “What are you talking about? How do you even know that name?”

Kai looked pleased with himself. “Your aunt told me. She said you came here two years ago trolling for intel on Bronn because you thought he had shirker connections, but you never brought him up on charges.”

“I didn’t, no.” It was hard for Bors to admit his failure, even now. He’d enlisted his unpleasant cousin Irin—dead not long afterward in a sordid dispute with smugglers, _may his last moment be bright_ —to help him spy on the young man. “Bronn has powerful friends,” he said, trying not to sound bitter.

Kai arched his brows. “And apparently powerful enemies. Hulda wants dirt on him, and you know what that means. Somebody with deep pockets is making it worth her while.”

“But—why?” The tidy categories of Bors’s world were colliding. “Somebody with deep pockets” meant somebody with clout, a Councillor or Bureau chief or high Admin. Despicable as Bronn was, he was still only a Councillor’s secretary, not powerful enough to get in such people’s way. “You must mean they want to bring down his protector, Councillor Gádden.”

“Whatever.” Kai yawned, the T-shirt stretching over his pectorals. “I can’t keep track; politics is so fucking boring. Anyway, whoever it is, whatever you know or suspect about Bronn, they’ll pay for it.”

Bors’s heart leaped. Even after two years and all the lectures he’d given himself about abandoning a foolish obsession, he couldn’t help savoring the thought of making Tilrey Bronn pay. The man had made him literally crawl on the floor and lick up a vial of sap. He had played Bors like a master, luring him with the wiles of a whore and then turning the tables on him.

And—far more importantly, of course—Tilrey Bronn was almost certainly a traitor, a protégé of the exile Ranek Egil, a Dissident at the very heart of the Council. No matter what Councillor Karishkov insisted, Bors believed that.

At the thought of Karishkov, he sagged, remembering how his mentor had stonewalled his every effort to bring Bronn to justice. “Whoever wants the intel, you should tell them to give up now,” he said. “Gádden has too much support on the Int/Sec committee.”

Kai scooted closer to Bors. “They want the intel, Borsha, and you have it, right? What they can or can’t do with it is their business, not ours. They pay either way.”

“I don’t get ‘paid.’ I’m not a whore. I have a posting, a sacred duty.”

Kai’s mouth twisted, and Bors sucked in a remorseful breath. That had come out wrong. “I mean, I’d do anything I can for you, Kai. Anything lawful. But selling information would go against my oaths.”

“It wouldn’t, though! Not this time!” Kai rose and paced the room’s length, his languor gone. Bors felt his impatience bouncing off the walls. “When you investigated Bronn, you weren’t under orders, right? You did it on your own time.”

Bors couldn’t deny that. There’d never been an official file on Bronn aside from Egil’s interrogation record, which was just as questionable as everything else Egil had done. “Karishkov didn’t think it was worth pursuing.”

Kai turned to him, his beautiful eyes shining with triumph. “So, how does it break your precious oaths to pass on intel that Int/Sec doesn’t want? Seems to me it’s _your_ business what you do with it.”

“I used Int/Sec equipment to gather that intelligence.” But Kai was right. Maybe not on a strictly legal level, but on a deeper moral level, everything Bors knew about Tilrey Bronn was _his._ Karishkov had chosen to ignore it, presumably because of his alliance with Gádden, but Bors had no such alliance.

He wanted to see Bronn get his comeuppance at the hands of the law, in a government cell. But if it had to happen at the hands of some ambitious rival who didn’t like Gádden, it would still be a comeuppance. Given the lack of official documentation, no one would ever know where the information came from.

And it would help Kai.

Excitement surged through Bors, making his breaths fast and shallow. He seemed to be sledding down a hill faster and faster, about to crash. He held out both hands to Kai, and when Kai took them and sat down beside him, he kissed Kai’s knuckles.

“No one can know it came from me,” he said. “I can’t supply anything legally actionable. Just gossip.”

Kai pressed their entwined hands hungrily to his own lips. “You know something juicy, don’t you? I can tell.”

It was degrading to allow himself to be pumped for information, but Bors had kept this all bottled up for so long. “I _know_ Tilrey Bronn is a Dissident.”

He described how he’d tracked Tilrey’s regular meetings with Egil, the known traitor, in a vacant apartment. “Karishkov said they were just fucking, but I have it on authority that Egil had no interest in that.” He hurried on, seeing Kai’s skeptical look. “There’ve been other meetings with questionable persons—I know! It’s all circumstantial. But when I confronted Councillor Gádden with what I’d learned, he turned white as a sheet. He kept a stiff upper lip and pulled rank on me, but I could tell he was shaken.”

Kai was stroking Bors’s knee in small circles. “I guess he didn’t mind that much. Aren’t he and Bronn still together?”

“They are!” Bors couldn’t keep the flash of rage off his face. He’d respected Gádden as a model of ethics, a guardian of the Republic. “Right after I told Gádden, Bronn moved out of his apartment, but it didn’t last. They went on that diplomatic mission to Harbour, and when they came back, they were . . . close again.”

Hands all over each other, whispering and kissing in the corridors of the Sector like schoolboys. But Kai didn’t need to know Bors had been watching the pair of them on his monitors. It might make him look deranged.

Kai patted Bors’s cheek, bringing his attention back to the conversation. His green eyes were tight on Bors’s, not hazed with sap at all. “You really don’t like those two, do you?”

“It’s not a personal thing,” Bors protested. He would never tell Kai or anyone how Tilrey had pleasured him and humiliated him at the same time—never, never. He’d allowed the vile man to take his virginity, and he’d _liked_ it.

“Well, it sounds like Bronn has Gádden wrapped around his little finger. I don’t know where kettle boys get off thinking they’re so superior to the rest of us just because they wear tunics. Drudges dressed up like Upstarts—it’s degrading, honestly.” Kai scowled, his fingers turning to claws on Bors’s knee. “I’d rather have every inch of my skin painted than let a Strutter parade me around dressed like his equal.”

Bors winced. He’d been trying not to think about the brilliant designs under Kai’s thin clothes—like something out of a Feudal tale, a slave marked with his lord’s crest. They were horrifying, yet he kept catching himself in daydreams of running his fingers over them.

“Bronn isn’t bothered by degradation. Want to know the worst of it?” He caught himself, realizing he couldn’t tell Kai something he’d never even dared mention to Karishkov, something that wasn’t the business of Int/Sec in the first place.

“What? Spit it out.”

“It’s not—it doesn’t matter. It’s not a serious crime, not a threat to security, just a matter for Records. One of those silly things that cause a scandal.”

“ _Tell_ me.” Kai’s fingers slid up Bors’s thigh. “We’re just gossiping, right?”

Right. Bors was no gossip, but he couldn’t help wanting to see Kai’s face light up again. Before he knew it, the words were out: “I believe Bronn has a misbirth—a child with Gádden’s wife. I believe the three of them are passing it off as Gádden’s.”

Now Kai’s jaw did drop. “Seriously? Why would you think that?”

“It’s all circumstantial. Again.” Bors was a little dizzy; it was the first time he’d voiced the suspicion. He’d considered telling Karishkov, of course, but the Councillor had mocked him so soundly last time he mentioned Bronn. He could already imagine how his superior would laugh: _You’re accusing the kettle boy of dishonoring a high Upstart’s line now? Seriously? Where will it end?_ “It all adds up, though,” he said defensively.

Kai’s eyes were alight with as much glee as disbelief. “Borsha, if that were true! Tell me what you know.”

Flushing under the intensity of Kai’s attention, Bors explained how he’d followed Tilrey Bronn and Vera Linnett to the latter’s apartment, both physically and virtually. “They were doing _something_ in there, on several occasions. What, I can’t tell you. Roughly nine months later, Vera Linnett and Gádden are suddenly married with a newborn.”

“And everyone knows Gádden has no interest in women. That’s good. That’s good!” Kai squeezed Bors’s hands. “You’re a treasure trove! I bet between us we’ve got enough dirt to destroy every member of the Council. Not like we’d actually dare soil their precious reputations—that’s their colleagues’ job.”

He flashed a cocky grin, then released Bors and slipped down from the chaise, onto his knees. “Not another word,” he said as Bors tried to protest. “Want to see me without a shirt again?”

Bors didn’t, he _didn’t_. But he didn’t say a thing as Kai smiled knowingly and pulled the shirt over his head. When Kai stretched and pivoted, showing off the rippling colors in the tepid daylight, Bors made a small sound that was almost a moan.

“See? They aren’t so bad, are they? Pretty, even. If you’re good, I’ll let you touch them.”

Bors shook his head. But when Kai came on strong this way, he was powerless. And already Kai was kneeling up and taking hold of the bulge between Bors’s legs, working it expertly through the tight-woven wool.

“I didn’t come here for that.” But it came out in a whimper. Before Bors could stop himself, he had both hands in Kai’s soft chestnut hair, stroking and tugging. His thighs spread of their own accord, and Kai muscled in between them and released the hardening cock before Bors could voice another objection.

“You could talk me into anything.” Bors leaned helplessly into the motion. Kai’s bare skin on his was even better than he remembered—agonizing and necessary, his shaft fitting in that broad palm like they’d been made for each other.

“You want me to talk less? Sounds good.”

The hand vanished. Bors moaned out loud as a muscular tongue played around his cockhead and darted down the length. “Please,” he whispered.

Kai slid the organ out of his mouth, keeping a tight hold on it. “Let’s be clear on this, Fir Dartán,” he said with the awful, delicious taunting quality that Bors remembered. “Want me to take every inch of you down my throat?”

“Yes. _Please_.”

As his throbbing organ slid into the indescribable warm wetness, so tight and supple at once, Bors had a fleeting memory of another mouth and throat, even more skilled. Of his whole body electrified by a sensation that was both pleasure and terror: knowing his enemy was at his feet, swallowing down the most sensitive, vulnerable piece of him.

Tilrey Bronn. _Oh, shit_. _Not him, not now._

But the memory didn’t make him go soft. It just made him knot his fingers in Kai’s hair and thrust harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week: Bors and Kai have a little more fun. ;) Thanks so much for reading! <3 <3


	7. Something Real

Kai—because he had to be Kai here—plucked the glasses off Bors’s nose and placed them on the cedar chest beside the bed. “These keep jabbing me. Anyway, I want to see you properly.”

“But I want to see _you_.” Stripped of his glasses, his head pillowed on Kai’s chest, Bors looked younger, a just-born creature squinting against the light. He was still fully dressed.

All they’d done so far was the blow job and some cuddling. It wasn’t Kai’s usual routine, but Bors seemed to enjoy taking it slow, so Kai was glad Einara had encouraged him to play this by ear. He was so used to lying back and letting things be done to him that he’d nearly forgotten how to be attentive to a partner.

He pulled Bors tighter into his arms and received a gratifying shiver in response. “You’re adorable like this, Fir,” he said. “After you come.”

“Am I?” Bors looked genuinely surprised. “Don’t call me Fir, though. Not you.”

He inched himself up Kai’s body till he reached his chest, where he bent over the sunflower tattoo. A finger traced the outline, grazing Kai’s nipple and producing small waves of sensation. “This is so complicated. Did it hurt?”

“That one? Nah. Some of the others did; it depends on where they are.” Kai didn’t want to admit that his dose had kept him from feeling most of the pain. “It’s less painful than, well, embarrassing. The Fira like to watch it being done, and they can be so damn smug about it. They think it means they own me.”

He stopped short. He didn’t normally complain about this stuff, didn’t even let himself feel it. This was what came of lowering his dose.

But Bors didn’t seem to find his weakness repellent. He gazed up into Kai’s face with an expression that might have been sympathy. “They can’t own you. No one owns you.”

“Well, obviously.” Kai wished he believed it. But you couldn’t go through the role-play night after night— _I’m yours, Fir; I’m nothing, do what you want with me_ —without some of it rubbing off. Anyway, he _was_ a fuckup who was better off with someone telling him what to do.

Bors was tracing the petals of the sunflower again. “Anyway, a tattoo doesn’t have to be a slave mark. In Thurskein, there are people called the Free Northmen who ink themselves to signify their connection to the old powers. The Spark, the wind, the ocean, the sky.”

Bors sounded so wistful that it took Kai a moment to grasp that these Free Northmen were probably his targets. Dangerous subjects whom he surveilled and reported on. “Like Hargists? They have tattoos.”

“Like Hargists, yes, but the Free Northmen aren’t nihilists.” Bors’s tone was still oddly dreamy. “They believe in the values of our ancestors—family bonds, strength, self-control, endurance, honor. They just don’t believe in technology or our modern way of living, alienated from the natural world.”

Kai snorted. “If they don’t believe in technology, they’re not going to get far with rebellion. The government will mow them down. They are rebels, aren’t they?”

“No!” Bors sounded almost offended. “Some of the younger elements make trouble, of course. Firebrands. But the Northmen don’t work to dismantle the system or the Levels. The worst they’ve done is spread themselves beyond the Laborer cities and take over the illegal sap trade in the Outer Ring.”

“That sounds like a lot, actually.” Kai propped himself on one elbow. Maybe this was just his bias, but sap seemed like the only commodity in Oslov worth controlling. What else made the long Reddan winters bearable? “Is Int/Sec worried about these tattooed Northmen?”

“Int/Sec is never ‘worried’ about anything.” Bors reached over Kai for his glasses, bristling with his usual alertness again. “The threat the Northmen pose to security is limited to our Sanctioned Sweetbush, and don’t bother trying to feed Hulda _that_ tidbit, because I’m sure she already trades with the Northmen in the Outer Ring. Their main concern is that they want to practice the old religion, which is also why it’s so important to them to take control of the sap trade. They think the drug should have a ritual function, not recreational. Otherwise, they’re not openly anti-government, and in some ways, they’ve actually strengthened the work ethic in their sectors of Thurskein. And they all vow solemnly never to touch a keyboard or access a net, which limits the damage they can do.”

Kai had to smile, because most Drudges were forbidden to do those things anyway. “You sound almost like you’re defending them.”

“Of course not. I respect them, though—they’re not shirkers.” Bors put on his glasses, looking thoughtful, and curled himself back up on Kai’s chest. “I wonder how much the Northmen know about Bronn and his Dissident connections. They started in Sector Five of ’Skein, but they’ve established quite a presence in Sector Six, where he was born. Vera Linnett is the Admin there now; she spends a few months of every year in ’Skein with her son.”

“ _Their_ son,” Kai pointed out slyly, tucking all this away for future reference.

“Yes. Well. My man inside Six says the shirkers have been far less active since the Northmen came to power, because the Northmen are more popular with the youth.” Bors sighed. “Without the Northmen, we’d have almost no one to monitor at all.”

“That’s good, though, right? You hate shirkers.” Kai was sick of this political talk. In one easy movement, he rolled Bors off him, onto his back, and brought his full weight down on top of the little spy.

Bors squeaked and stiffened under Kai’s bulk. Kai laughed gently, bringing the pressure of his thigh to bear on Bors’s crotch. “What do you think I’m gonna do? Ravish you?”

Bors relaxed again—then tensed in a new way as Kai worked him through his trousers. “You’re just so strong,” he breathed.

“Mmmm. But you know I won’t hurt you.” Bors hardened quickly, but he had no more pacing than a schoolboy; if Kai hadn’t known just when to pull back, he might have come already. Lack of experience, Kai supposed.

Bors squirmed, trying to push Kai’s hand away even as his hips rutted toward it. “You already made me come once. It’s, it’s my—” He broke off, his eyes forlorn and magnified by the glasses.

Kai’s chuckle was even gentler this time. “Are you trying to say it’s your turn? You know I don’t work that way.”

“What way? I can’t—I can’t pleasure you?”

Fine. Maybe this was what Einara meant about offering Bors “something real.” Kai tugged his hand out from between them, ignoring Bors’s involuntary sigh of protest, and rolled over and arched his back, giving Bors a good view of the growing bulge in his thin lounge pants. “You really want to take a turn, love? Have at it.”

He expected Bors to do exactly what he’d been doing. Instead, Bors grabbed hold of the elastic and peeled the fabric down to free Kai’s cock.

Kai froze, remembering the healing welts and old scars on his thighs. Most of them were on his backside, but occasionally the lash slipped. He didn’t feel ready to show Bors that panorama just yet.

To his relief, Bors seemed too busy bending down and lapping timidly around the head of Kai’s cock to notice anything amiss. For a moment, the sensation shocked Kai—a deep-down, tickling, teasing thrill that curled his toes and arched his spine. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had given him this kind of attention.

Bors lacked the skills to follow through, though. Kai lay patiently and endured the spy’s tentative ministrations, craving a deeper, more receptive envelope for his straining erection. He was tempted to grab hold of Bors’s hair and thrust himself into the reluctant throat, but the thought passed.

“That’s _so_ good,” he said encouragingly, throwing his head back and closing his eyes, feigning the throes of ecstasy. “Fucking amazing, Bors. If you could just—maybe bring in your hand again? I’ll come faster that way. Oh yes. Like that. Unbelievable. _Yes._ ”

***

When Bors made his way out into the corridor, stunned and shaky, Aunt Hulda’s lackey was waiting there.

“What is it?” he asked as the tall, blond girl fell into step just behind him. Evening was coming on, and it was mortifying to think that someone like Karishkov might happen by and see him here. Besides, he was impatient to get back to his screens in the Blinding Tank. “Does Hulda want to see me, after all?”

“No, Fir. I just wanted to make sure everything was to your satisfaction.”

“How considerate. So my aunt can manipulate me and threaten my friend, but she still won’t face me?”

The lackey was as respectful as she’d been last time, yet Bors thought he detected subtle irreverence in her reply: “If I may be honest, Fir’n Director says the two of you have never gotten on that well. That’s why she sent me in her place.”

Maybe she was mocking him because he’d been born a Drudge—everyone here knew. Bors bit his lip. He wouldn’t take offense—not after the transcendent hour he’d just had in Kai’s arms, touching and being touched. He didn’t want to ruin the memory of today, but he could show this little slut how dignity looked.

“Well then,” he said, “you can tell Hulda I think it’s shameful how you’re using Kai. He’s sick, and you’re making him sicker to wring more value out of him. The Sanctioned isn’t supposed to profit anyone except society at large. I could report you both.”

The girl didn’t flinch, just kept walking a step behind him down the blond-wood-paneled corridor, hands behind her back. “You could indeed, Fir.”

“If I don’t, it’s only because I _do_ want to help Kai. And you know it.”

“I want to help him, too.”

They were nearly at the door of the lobby. Rather than step into that more public space, Bors wheeled on her. “No, you don’t.”

She gazed back, the blue eyes so placid they absorbed his irritation. “I execute Fir’n Director’s orders, but I don’t always agree with them, Fir. To see a fine man like Kai enslaved to the sweetness—that saddens me.”

Bors blinked, disoriented. Her accent was no different from his, but no Oslov would ever call sap “the sweetness” or use the archaic word “enslaved” in a modern context. “You’re an Outer?”

She smiled ruefully. “An Oslov citizen now. My papers are in order.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Bors had heard of Admins and officers posted in the Wastes who made pets of Outers and fast-tracked their citizenship. When they got tired of them, they sent them to pad the ranks of the city’s brothels. Not all barbarians meant ill to the Republic, he supposed, but how many of these whores were properly vetted? How many of them had been raised to see the Republic as their oppressor—sometimes with justification?

The girl bowed her head. “Citizenship is a great honor, Fir. I try to be worthy of it. My father was an Oslov.”

“Hmm.” Bors let his lip curl. How many Outers had some version of that sob story?

She seemed earnest, though, her gaze tight on his. “My mother’s people were brutes, and I never wanted to live among them. But they do know one thing: how to treat sap with respect. For them, it’s a sacred gift, a pathway to the eternal.”

_Like the Northmen._ Bors’s mouth twisted again before he could stop it. “For us, it’s a temptation to corruption. If Whyberg could see how we barter goods and secrets for vials, he would be appalled. Not that it’s my place to judge a sanctioned form of recreation,” he added hastily. “I don’t make the laws, only execute them.”

The girl stared for an instant. Then she smiled at him—a shockingly sweet, lovely smile, all dimples and sparkling eyes. “I’m glad you care for Kai, Fir, even if it’s only a little. Together, maybe we can help him.”

Bors’s face burned. He’d never felt attracted to a woman in his life, _certainly_ not to an Outer, but some part of him longed to bask in the light of that smile. Maybe all elite sex workers had that power.

Kai certainly did. Bors still felt a little giddy from the bliss they’d experienced together, a blush staining his cheeks as he heard the echo of Kai’s moans in his imagination. Who would have thought giving pleasure could be as thrilling as receiving it? And before and after, when they lounged in bed and talked—maybe those parts were the best of all.

“I care for Kai more than a little. As an old friend, of course, and nothing more,” he said severely, to cover his self-consciousness. “I hope to see him again. But I have boundaries, and my aunt should understand that. What I told Kai—” He swallowed. “It’s valuable, I think. But I told him only because the knowledge means nothing to my superiors.”

The girl’s smile faded, and her eyes narrowed complicitly as she leaned in, extending her hand. “I understand, Fir.”

“Do you, though? If Hulda thinks she can start pumping me for secrets, she’s wrong.” The ultimatum could make this idyll with Kai his last, but he might as well take the pill now.

She didn’t seem troubled. “Let me handle Hulda. I have a way with her, Fir. If you come back next seventh-day at four, I’ll make sure you’re admitted.”

She agreed with him. Perhaps, if he figured out some real treatment for Kai, she might help. Bors clasped her knuckles, superior to inferior. “Thank you,” he said, almost surprised at his own earnestness. “What should I call you?”

“Einara. You honor me with your trust, Fir.” She smiled again, with just a hint of that radiance this time, and turned and left him.

***

“Nice work,” Hulda said. She was knitting in her bath, needles dipping in and out of the steam. “Between you and Kai, you may just worm your way into the spy’s cold, dark heart.”

“He’s your _nephew_.” Kneeling on the tile, Einara massaged the old woman’s shoulders. “This doesn’t bother you?”

“Not at all. We aren’t harming him. Maybe we’re even helping him self-actualize by showing him who he is.” Hulda gasped. “Oh, that’s good. Anyway, Bors is already more useful than I expected. Tilrey Bronn mentioned to me that he had a son, but I had no idea he meant Vera Linnett’s son, that sly devil. And to think Councillor Gádden married the mother to make the boy legitimate. That’s quite amazing—revolutionary, almost. It proves Gádden’s devotion to his lover. I’m feeling a bit more secure in his loyalty now.”

“But Bronn is still our ally, isn’t he?” Einara dug the heels of her hands into the knots in Hulda’s shoulders.

“Of course, my love. And it’s always useful to know one’s allies’ secrets . . . just in case.”

Einara didn’t let her relief show. Sooner or later she’d find a way to meet Tilrey Bronn. He and Bors Dartán, with his access to classified files, might be her best chances of learning who had sent a missile to Michigan to kill her mother and sister.

Ever since her lethal rashness with Irin Dartán, she’d been even more cautious about whom she told. She had dared to ask Hulda, who already knew her great secret, but the old woman had simply shaken her head. _I wouldn’t be surprised. When it comes to foreign affairs, our government strikes first and asks questions later. And it doesn’t tell its citizens a thing._

“And the Free Northmen?” Einara asked with deliberate casualness. “Could they be useful allies?”

“Oh, those bearded puppies. It’s true they’ve taken over the trade, but only because the Kauvilaas feuded themselves into exhaustion. If the Northmen really did grow and tap their own sweetbushes, they might be a powerful force, but I don’t see that happening.”

“They’re popular with the people, though. That counts for something.” If Kai’s impression could be trusted, even the ultra-loyalist Bors was weirdly enamored of the Northmen.

“Vapid streaming dramas and undrinkable rotgut are popular with the people, too.” Hulda made a dismissive noise. “Do you know, the Northmen’s so-called leader is just eighteen? He claims to be a Councillor’s misborn son, begotten on a Skeinsha, bridging two worlds. It’s all theater.”

Hulda might not be intrigued, but Einara was. “How romantic,” she said, camouflaging her eagerness in sarcasm. “I hear they wear beards, too, like my countrymen. I’d like to meet them, just to see. Maybe you could send me with the vials in Svesinov’s place?”

“And risk your falling in love with one of those handsome Northmen and running back into the Wastes with him?” Hulda nabbed Einara’s braid and tugged her down for a kiss. “Not likely, my sweet girl. You have secrets, and you’ll stay within these walls where I can keep an eye on you. Now, why don’t you take my knitting and help me towel off?”


	8. Learn From the Best

Bors raised his head from Kai’s lap. He’d put his glasses aside, and his eyelids looked red and raw, his expression forlorn. “I can’t _do_ this.”

“Silly. It’s my fault. You’re great at it,” Kai lied, pulling him in for a kiss. “I can’t always stay hard when I’m dosed up, that’s all.” He stroked Bors’s hair, eager to distract him. This was their third session, and he needed to coax Bors into opening up, or Hulda would get impatient. While she didn’t insist that each session yield information, she did want evidence of progress toward seducing the spy into greater intimacy and honesty—for what ultimate purpose, Kai still didn’t know.

“Tell me more about the Free Northmen,” he said, inspired. “They sound sexy, with all that body hair. Maybe they’ll get me in the mood.”

Bors giggled. “I can’t imagine kissing a beard.”

“No? I don’t think it would be so bad.” Kai kissed him again, long and slow, and then moved Bors’s hand to his cock. “Tell me about this Aleks Snowblind. Hulda says he claims to be a Councillor’s misborn son.”

“ _He_ doesn’t claim it.” Bors’s hand began working automatically. “Aleks isn’t like that—not a braggart. He won’t even talk about his father. People tell stories, though.”

“What kind of stories?” Kai sat up a little and reached for the bulge between Bors’s legs. “You know, I can tell he’s hot just from the way you talk about him.”

“It’s not that.” Bors leaned into the motion.

“So he’s ugly?”

“No!” Bors wet his lips. “He’s only eighteen—I’m not attracted to him. He has presence, that’s all. Like a leader. They say his father tried to Raise him and bring him to Redda when he came of age, and Aleks said no. Refused to be an Upstart—can you imagine?”

“I can think of worse things than giving up that chance,” Kai muttered.

Bors’s expression made it clear that he couldn’t, but Kai’s skilled movements were distracting him. His own hand had stilled. “They say Aleks pulled out a knife and threatened to slit his father’s throat if he ever came back to their sector— _oh! That’s good!_ He did it for his mother’s sake, they said. The Councillor had loved and discarded her, and she wanted him to suffer. The man was all prepared to compensate Aleks handsomely, to give him a plum posting in the Sector. But Aleks wouldn’t accept a thing.”

“Mmmm.” Kai pulled Bors close and mouthed against his neck, hand still working. The story was as juicy as a stream. “Aren’t you shocked, Borsha? I thought you believed in respect for your betters.”

“Of course I do!” Bors’s own hand tightened. “But Councillors shouldn’t be going around impregnating Laborers, should they? Or if they must, they should take their medicine and—oh, green hells, you’re killing me. What are you doing? It’s supposed to be my turn to pleasure you.”

Kai shrugged. “I believe in respect for my betters,” he said, straight-faced, and knelt to sheath Bors in his mouth.

***

“Fir Dartán,” said Eivan Kranik, bowing his head. “What a nice surprise after all this time.” He rose to offer Bors his desk chair, the only one in the office. “What can I do for you?”

In the two years since Bors’s humiliating failure with Tilrey Bronn, while Bors’s career had stagnated, Kranik had somehow managed to get himself elevated from a lowly screen minder to the caretaker of Int/Sec’s archives. While once he’d been a wretched little addict willing to sell himself to anyone—such was the rumor, anyway—now he had a whole office of his own, albeit a tiny one. His tone was casual and friendly, but he carried himself with pride, looking Bors directly in the eye.

“No, sit down. Please. It’s your office,” Bors said, flustered. He’d expected this to be easier. The nice thing about Kranik, back in the days when Bors supervised him, was that he never made a fuss about anything. Even Bors’s bad moods—and there’d been a lot of them—never fazed him.

“I’m not here for anything official, to be honest.” Bors twisted his hands behind his back. “I’m afraid I’m about to give you a very funny and very embarrassing story to tell your coworkers about me.”

Kranik cocked his head. “When have I ever tattled on you, Fir?”

“Never to my knowledge. You, er, seem very discreet.” Verdant hells, Bors had to just say it before he lost his nerve.

He’d spent two days debating whether to ask Kranik or Einara before deciding that Kranik was less intimidating. But this new, businesslike Kranik he wasn’t so sure about. “I,” he said, lowering his voice. “Well, you see, I’m . . . involved with someone.”

Kranik grinned wide, showing some of his old relish for gossip. “Glad to hear it, Fir. Gives you something to do besides spend all night in the office, doesn’t it?”

 _Please don’t let him tell everyone so they can make fun of me._ “Yes. But the thing is, you see, there are certain activities—certain abilities—that I lack a certain experience in. One doesn’t want to receive without, uh, reciprocating.” Bors cleared his throat and gazed over Kranik’s shoulder, his eyes tearing. How on earth did proper born Upstarts handle these situations?

Kranik kept on grinning. “Might one of these activities involve use of the tongue?”

“I, uh . . .”

“I guess I have a reputation, huh? Want to suck cock with the best? Learn from the best.”

Bors’s face burst into flame. “I don’t mean to imply—”

“Of course you do, but that’s okay. I’m not offended. Slightly flattered, actually.” Kranik rose again, taking his time, and pointed at the chair he’d abandoned. “Don’t worry, I’m not about to give you a live demo. I’m way too dignified for that now, and I happen to be in a mutually beneficial _exclusive_ relationship.”

Bors sat down. “I—I’m happy for you” was all he managed to say, feeling reprimanded in a way he didn’t fully understand. Could Kranik somehow guess that his own relationship was only debatably a relationship, and far from exclusive?

“Right. I just want you to be comfortable while we go through some pointers. Do you have something you can practice on at home, Fir? A nice fat daikon, maybe?”

Fifteen minutes later, when Bors left the archives and returned to his section of the Blinding Tank, his face was still burning. He hoped he could trust Kranik not to tell anyone about the conversation and the helpful “pointers” he’d received.

But if it got around the office, so be it. He refused to be motivated by fear of ridicule anymore. He was going to see Kai tomorrow, and Kai’s very life might depend on their time together. If Bors learned to pleasure his old schoolmate properly, perhaps he could convince Kai to sap a little less and take a good hard look at his life.

Not to mention, they would both enjoy it.

Lost in his dreams of Kai’s rumpled bed in the Brothel, Bors didn’t immediately register the knot of people crowded around the terminals. When he did, he leaned in and saw they were raptly focused on two surveillance screens from the loading docks of Thurskein’s Sector Four.

He asked the nearest screen minder, “What is it? Is there a riot?”

She shook her head. “It’s Aleks Snowblind, Fir—Thulver, Aleksandr, I mean. He’s been arrested.”

“Arrested?” Bors pushed her aside.

Sure enough, there was Aleks, standing docilely between two soldiers with his hands cuffed. A Constable was reading him the list of citizen’s rights.

Tall and slender, still several months shy of leaving school, Aleks had no beard at present, only black stubble creeping over his cheeks. There was nothing overtly rebellious in his posture—if anything, he seemed friendly with the Constables. Still, the sight sent a shiver coursing through Bors’s body. When Aleks smiled at the lead Constable in a way that was almost cheeky, a small charge went off inside him. There was a leader. There was a man.

And now they would fly him to Redda to be interrogated. They would bring him here and lock him in a cell. Bors felt a strange stab of regret mixed with anticipation.

“What’d they get him on?” he asked, almost whispering.

“Thulver and his friends snuck out past the boundaries again. They were tending their precious pine trees, trying to grow their own sap.”

Of course. Malkien Sollentaal, Bors’s best asset in Thurskein’s Sector Six, had given him a tip on the location of the Northmen’s latest sweetbush. When the time was right, Bors had passed it to the Constables. This arrest was _his_ coup, but he’d never dared hope that Aleks himself would be caught in the net.

This should be his moment of triumph. It was he who’d persisted in surveilling the Northmen back when his superiors dismissed them as a simple sporting club. It was he who’d traced the origins of Aleks’s radicalism in a hundred-page report on the dangerous connections of Aleks’s mother, Verena Thulver, who came from a long line of Laborers who quietly practiced the old religion of the Spark. So why was his heart thudding with something like terror?

He just didn’t want Aleks to die for something as stupid as growing trees.

The young man had so much influence over the youth of Sectors Five and Six. If they could get him to understand the dangers of the beliefs that his mother and the other elders were feeding him, perhaps they could still turn him into a tool for good.

But that would work only if Bors could get Karishkov to let him conduct the questioning—under an Interrogator’s guidance, of course. No one here understood Aleks the way he did.

He wanted to keep watching, but the soldiers had led Aleks off camera for processing. Flushed and sweaty, Bors rushed out of the Blinding Tank, through the immense hangar of cubicles, and climbed two flight of stairs to the dimly lit corridor where the higher-ups had their offices.

Director Gelmedyn didn’t make him knock twice this time. “I was expecting you, Dartán. Very nice work.”

“Thank you, Fir’n Director.” Bors tried to calm himself, to scrub the hectic excitement from his tone. High Upstarts were never excited. “The real credit belongs to our asset, Sollentaal. He risked his life to worm his way into the Northmen’s inner circle.”

“Yes, admirable.” Gelmedyn turned back to her screen, looking more blasé than he’d expected. She clicked her tongue. “The officer on the ground sent pictures of the pine plantation. Frankly, it’s not that impressive.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be. I mean, the pines start small.” Bors jammed his hands in his pockets, then removed them and clasped them behind his back. “Director, may I be direct? Given the time I’ve spent profiling our suspect, I feel my expertise is needed in the interrogation. I know it’s irregular, but—”

He broke off as he realized Gelmedyn was staring at him. There was a hint of pity in the twist of her mouth as she said, “My dear Analyst Dartán, there won’t be an interrogation.”

“I—what?” It felt like a poleaxe in the side. “But you can’t move straight to exile. Not this time! Thulver’s just a boy, really a figurehead for the elders in the movement, and his knowledge is valuable. With the right management, he might even become an asset—”

“Oh, we aren’t about to exile him.” A small, crisp smile. “We’re going to give him a ten-day or two in detention and allow him to return to his usual activities.”

“But—why?” For the second time in a few minutes, she’d knocked the wind out of him. True, Aleks had never been caught personally in the act of offending until now, but— “You’ve read my file? Figurehead or not, he’s at the center of a criminal network!”

“That file isn’t thick enough yet,” Gelmedyn said in a tone that indicated the matter wasn’t up for discussion. “Frankly, Councillor Karishkov and I don’t want to move too fast on Thulver.”

“But, but—Karishkov testified before the ag committee that the Northmen pose a danger to our sap supply. He scared all the Councillors—he can’t turn around and let a ringleader walk.” Bors’s face burned. He didn’t even know if he was dismayed or relieved, only that Karishkov’s behavior made no sense. “How can he let an opportunity like this slip by? How can you?”

Face tilted into the lamplight, Gelmedyn gave him the look she always did when he was getting above his station. “You’ve done excellent work, Dartán, as usual, but you have a tendency to get so personally invested in these cases that you lose all sense of perspective. First the nonsense about Tilrey Bronn, and now this.”

“It wasn’t—”

The director spoke inexorably over him. “I wonder if you might benefit from a reassignment back to Redda. We’ve been tracking a cell of University Hargists who could use tighter monitoring.”

“But I—what?” Bors’s thoughts were short-circuiting. The last thing he wanted was to be taken off his Thurskein assignment, where he was poised to have a real impact. He couldn’t just _stop_ watching Aleks Snowblind. But what was she offering him? “University Hargists are _Upstarts_. Only a second-class Analyst can monitor them.”

“Maybe it’s time to give you both a transfer and a promotion, then.”

Bors felt his mouth fall open. He’d wanted a promotion forever, and she knew it.

Gelmedyn gave him a tight smile. Bors had a dim sense that she was enjoying his consternation. “It’s just a thought—something for us to discuss as the investigation evolves. For now, I suggest you stop fretting so much about Aleksandr Thulver. Go back to your monitors, do your work, and leave the big decisions to those who have a grasp of the big picture.”

***

Bors was still in a bad temper the next day as he headed for the Brothel. When a sleek-haired man approached him at the tram stop and said, “Please walk this way, Fir,” he snapped, “Who are you? I’ll do no such thing.”

“I’m Svesinov, Fir. The Brothel steward.” The man’s voice dropped, and his beady eyes glittered with amusement. Despite his good carriage and grooming, he looked just as shifty as Bors would expect from a Brothel steward.

“Fir’n Director sent me to bring you in the side door,” Svesinov continued, ushering Bors toward an exit. “She said you might be concerned about your visits attracting notice.”

That was true; the Brothel’s front entrance faced the street and the tram route, and Bors didn’t want Karishkov, in particular, knowing about his visits. “That’s considerate of her,” he said begrudgingly and followed the steward down a flight of stairs onto a catwalk, trying to ignore the icy flakes blowing in his face.

The Brothel’s façade was a jagged slab of black granite, glittering with quartz and set back dramatically from the thoroughfare. Its side walls and wings, by contrast, were mere concrete boxes—like the University, Bors thought, unnerved by the resemblance. The windows were few and angled away from the street; many of the rooms seemed to be lit only by skylights.

The catwalk led them to a loading dock, where the steward used his hand-chip to open a succession of three doors. “Can’t be too careful, Fir,” he said, waving Bors through into what appeared to be a massive pantry. “Don’t try to exit this way without me—it’s all locked and alarmed.”

 _Like a prison._ Kai had had to sneak out—wasn’t he even allowed visits home anymore?

When Einara met them in the Brothel’s kitchen, Bors was primed to complain again about this abuse of power. But she held out her hand, smiling warmly, and his resentment dissolved.

After all, she wasn’t the one in charge. She was only an Outer—a prisoner like Kai, perhaps even more so because she had no home to return to. Bors knew the feeling; he hadn’t seen his mother for a full year, and his father for longer. He no longer belonged anywhere except the Blinding Tank—and perhaps here in this cursed place, if Kai continued to want to see him.

“I appreciate the discretion, Einara,” he said, smiling back.

***

“You look like you have a surprise,” Kai said coyly. “Is it for me?”

Poor Bors could never conceal what was in his heart. Kai could see the spy was suppressing a smile, and when he released it, his ordinary features glowed with an odd beauty.

“It’s not exactly a surprise,” he said, flushing crimson. “It’s just, I’ve been practicing something. For you.”

“Oh?” Kai made himself comfortable on the chaise and let his legs fall open suggestively. “How long are you going to make me wait?”

He’d already decided, in consultation with Einara, that it was time for Bors to fuck him. Each session brought them a little closer in a way they hadn’t been before, and their conversations in the after-glow were increasingly frank and free. They needed to consummate whatever this was. And if Bors wanted to start by blowing him, why not?

“On your knees, my love,” Kai coaxed, prepared to feign ecstasy again.

But Bors clearly _had_ practiced, or at least read up on technique. He began by using his tongue more knowingly than before, responding to Kai’s little gasps and shifts. When he slid Kai’s length into his mouth, he kept going—slowly but steadily, his virginal throat flexing to accommodate the intrusion.

Kai clutched at the upholstery, his hips bucking uncontrollably. That was _good._ Bors gagged at the unexpected thrust, but he didn’t expel Kai’s cock, only held it in place with his hand and ran his tongue up the length. Then he knelt up and took it deeper again.

For a frantic moment, Kai was being torn apart. He didn’t _deserve_ this—certainly not from an Upstart who had the Republic’s secrets in his care. Bors was lonely, and they were exploiting that loneliness for reasons known only to Hulda and whichever high Upstart was paying her. How would Bors feel when he discovered Kai was the instrument of his ruin?

Then Bors’s throat flexed a little more, and Kai didn’t care. He clenched his fists and threw his head back and let himself shout, “Green flames of fucking hell!” as he spent himself in Bors’s body.

***

Bors had never imagined it could feel so good to be broken open. To please someone. Not since the afternoon when Tilrey Bronn had bent him over a counter—but he wouldn’t, couldn’t think about that cursed man.

Pillowed on Kai’s chest, his cheek resting on the sunflower tattoo, he seemed to be floating in a warm bath. Kai’s fingers moved through his hair, tickling his scalp. Bors hadn’t even come yet, his cock achingly hard in his trousers against Kai’s thigh, yet he wasn’t impatient. There was plenty of time.

Kai’s other hand slithered between them, and strong fingers closed around Bors’s shaft. “Mmm,” Kai said in that sleepy, indolent voice that always made Bors harder. “I think it’s time I had this inside me.”

The words quickened Bors’s pulse, and he thrust into Kai’s hand, his organ throbbing desperately. He wanted to be inside Kai, of course, but he also couldn’t stop imagining how it would feel the other way round—to be bent over something with that meaty shaft stretching him wide. His newly intimate acquaintance with Kai’s cock made it all too easy to imagine.

He couldn’t ask for that, though—not yet, anyway. Too embarrassing. “I want you,” he whispered.

His words might have been magic. Quick as a flash, Kai rolled Bors off him and onto his side. Then he knelt beside Bors and began to work a finger inside himself in the matter-of-fact way Bors remembered.

“Let me do that,” he protested.

“Faster this way.” Kai wriggled out of his loose pants and rolled onto his back, spreading his thighs wide and folding his knees to his shoulders with tantalizing flexibility. “See? How’s that? Or would you prefer hands and knees?”

Bors’s mouth had gone dry. He lowered himself on top of Kai and kissed him passionately, sloppily. When Kai kissed back hard, giving him tongue for tongue, Bors groaned with helpless need. Did Kai want this, too? He’d never seemed to before, not really, but maybe—

Bors’s trousers were off in a blink, and soon he was pressing Kai’s knees down, lining himself up, already anticipating the intense embrace of the warm sheath. That was when something caught the light on the back of Kai’s right thigh.

Scar tissue. Looking closer, a vein throbbing in his temple, Bors found more marks on both thighs: faint purple-red streaks like bruises and older silvery traces where the skin had been abraded or broken.

His stomach turned over, its contents pressing into his throat. His gasp was no longer arousal. “Who did this to you?”

Kai scowled. “Doesn’t matter. C’mon, I’m waiting.”

Bors’s erection was withering. “I’ve seen marks like this before,” he managed. _In interrogation photos._ Whipping was used both to hurt and humiliate. “They hurt you. The patrons.”

Kai rolled up into a sitting position and grabbed Bors’s hands. “Sweetheart, that’s just who I am now. A stress reliever for important men. When Councillors want to hurt someone, they hurt me.”

“Councillors?” Bors knew how naïve he sounded. Of course he’d known that Kai’s usual patrons were Councillors, and that they used his body in unsavory ways, but he hadn’t imagined specifics beyond the tattoos. “I thought no one was allowed to cause bodily harm here,” he said, fighting the urge to inch away.

“Oh, we have rules, all right—whole binders of them. Technically they’re not allowed to break the skin, but sometimes it happens. What can you do?”

Kai sounded so jaunty that Bors had an impulse to slap him. Then he realized Kai was putting a brave face on things, and tears rose to his eyes. Why was he blaming the victim?

He reached out, carefully, and stroked the knob of Kai’s shoulder. He asked before he could stop himself, “Did Karishkov do any of that?”

“I don’t know any Karishkov.”

Bors was so relieved that he collapsed beside Kai, suddenly aware that he was trembling all over. “He’s my mentor. My former boss. The only Councillor I know, really. I used to admire him so much.”

Kai rolled toward Bors and stroked the hair off his forehead. “And now you don’t?”

“I didn’t say that.” But it was true, wasn’t it? Karishkov had disappointed Bors time after time with his unaccountable decisions: refusing to pursue Tilrey Bronn, letting Aleks Snowblind walk free. And now, perhaps, promoting Bors to demote him.

Then there’d been the instances when Bors was fairly sure the offenders Karishkov had imprisoned or interrogated were really just convenient scapegoats, low-Level people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Aside from Ranek Egil and Fredrich Akeina, the Councillor’s nephew, he couldn’t think of a single Upstart who’d been exiled for treason in the past ten years. Sure, there were plenty of investigations of University Hargists, but those slumming youths generally got off with stints in moral rehab. Why was it so hard for Upstarts to admit their own could threaten the Republic, too?

Tilrey Bronn had powerful Upstart friends. Aleks Snowblind supposedly had an Upstart father. Maybe it all came down to connections.

Bors’s jaw clenched. Something that was both foreign and familiar took hold of him—an animal rage.

He was nine again, watching his mother bounce on her Strutter lover’s lap and giggle and stretch out her hand for a vial until the man gave her one, accompanied by a pinch on her fleshy hip. The next morning, when the Strutter was gone, Bors had asked his mother, _Why do you let him do those things?_ And she said, _Because he takes care of us._

“I’m glad Karishkov didn’t do that to you.” Bors tried to relax in Kai’s arms, but he just kept trembling. “The ones who did hurt you, though . . . what’s wrong with them?”

“Shhh.” Kai kissed his forehead. “Nothing’s wrong with them. It’s a kink like any other, though some of them take it a bit far. Most of them give me a safe word, and then there’s sap. Believe me, sap makes it all easier.”

“I’m sure,” Bors said bitterly, remembering his mother begging for the vial. He pressed his face against the tattoo below Kai’s collar bone. “I know it’s all just a question of merit, and they know better than we do, and we shouldn’t question them. But sometimes I wonder if it’s _just_ merit. They have all these networks and these in-jokes, and there’s so much I don’t understand, and even after being Raised, I still feel so clueless and helpless sometimes—Kai? What’s so funny?”

Kai was laughing softly. He wiped a tear from one lucent green eye. “You really believe all that ‘merit’ bullshit, Borsha? Still?”

Answers swarmed to Bors’s lips—imperious reprimands, scoldings, quotes from Whyberg. But he couldn’t seem to say a single word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How on earth do you radicalize someone like Bors? That's what I hope to find out. (Sex certainly helps!) Thank you to Fair_Feather_Friend for inspiring the brief return of Kranik, who did deserve a better send-off.
> 
> As for Aleks Snowblind/Thulver, we'll see him closer up in the next (short) story, interacting with Tilrey and young Ceill. This story has a few more chapters to go, though. Hope everyone is well, and thank you so much for reading! <3


	9. Pieces of Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains ... M/M, M/F, whipping, pegging, whump, talk of self-harm, and hate sex, or at least hate foreplay. The whole kit and kaboodle, so please proceed with appropriate caution.

Two vials a day weren’t enough. The Painted Boy’s numbness dissipated too quickly, and nothing was left but aches and pains and the cold, hard fact of Councillor Lindahl trying to break him down and make him cry.

“Why did I just give you sixteen strokes?”

The Painted Boy’s cheek rested on a tiled wall. His bare feet were on tiles, too. Above his head, shackles bit into his wrists, forcing him to stand on tiptoe. The lashes had felt almost good at first, the friction of the leather tails starting a warm buzz in his ass and thighs, but they’d stopped feeling good well before sixteen.

“Because that was how many questions I got wrong on the opening section of my E-Squareds, Fir,” he recited, dutiful but sullen.

The whip made a faint snick as it caught air, and the Painted Boy braced himself. “ _Fuck_ ,” he hissed as the impact sent him cowering sideways into the wall. He was already raw in that spot. “What’d I do wrong?”

“What’d you do wrong?” As always, Lindahl sounded like an exasperated uncle—as if the Painted Boy had personally betrayed him by being merely what he was and what Lindahl wanted him to be. “You’re a failure!” the Councillor said. “A waste of space. You inherit good genes, the best education, all the chances a boy could get, and what do you do with them? End up here, getting your ass lashed raw because you still can’t behave. And when I deny you sap for your own good, you _attack_ me.”

It was all part of their usual script, but the script kept getting closer to reality, and the Painted Boy couldn’t think of his next line. He was naked except for a heavy leather belt around his waist, buckled so tight he felt it with each breath. He wished Lindahl would unshackle him and yank him by it and take him to bed already.

“Show me how to behave, Fir.” The last word was a sob.

“I’ve told you and told you.” Lindahl sounded close to weeping, too.

The whip bit the air again, and the Painted Boy cried out in anticipation—then went silent, shuddering, when the blow didn’t land. “I’ll try to be good,” he whined.

Lindahl had no control of himself; that was the real problem. Gourmanian and Davita Lindblom knew how to take care of the Painted Boy and channel their demons into a form of play he could (usually) endure. But Lindahl seemed genuinely eager to hurt him, or whoever he was standing in for. Perhaps one day the man would go too far.

The Councillor’s voice was still choked as he said, “Maybe you need to be whipped till you’re bleeding? Will you learn your lesson then?”

_What does he want?_ The Painted Boy braced himself on the tiles and twisted his hips toward Lindahl, trying to be enticing. “I’ll be good for you, Fir, I promise. Please, no more. I—” He swallowed hard; his throat was dry. He needed another dose so fucking badly. “I do want the whip, just not like that. You know what I mean, Fir. You know how I really need to be punished.”

Behind him, the Councillor swore softly. “ _That’s_ what you want? You shameless little slut.”

He sounded more aroused and less angry, though—good. The Painted Boy spread his legs and offered his aching buttocks. “I’m _such_ a slut, Fir. I know you try to teach me better, but this is what I am.”

“Absolutely shameless.” There was gentle condescension in Lindahl’s voice now; he was back in control.

“Show me what I am, Fir. Make me feel it.” He was back on script. This might be bearable, after all.

The Painted Boy managed not to wince as Lindahl stepped close and ran the fat wooden handle of the whip down his spine to his ass crack. His cock stirred between his legs, reminding him that he’d sometimes enjoyed this more than he cared to admit.

The shackles dug into his wrists as the handle probed bluntly between his thighs, finding the already-greased hole. In the instant before it entered him, he had an impulse to shy away. But he only whined deep in his throat and lifted his hips toward his tormentor, so the object slipped into his sensitive passage with almost no resistance.

“Mmmm.” Lindahl drew the whip handle out a bit and drove it deeper, making the Painted Boy gasp at the intrusion. “You really do like this,” he noted as if observing an experiment.

“Yes,” the Painted Boy whispered. His body had gone limp and pliant even as his cock hardened. Only a true slut would want to be treated this way—possessed and occupied by an unyielding nub of wood, not even worthy of the Councillor’s cock. “Fuck me with it, Fir.”

“You’re disgusting. A disgrace to your homeland and your birth. But at least you know it, and self-awareness is worth something. Maybe there’s a place in the Republic even for you. What do _you_ think that is?”

He didn’t have to think hard about that one. The Councillor’s hand was moving faster now, thrusting the handle into him as far as it would go. “To bear your mark, Fir. I’m your slut. I’m your thing.”

Finally secure in his sense of superiority, the Councillor fucked the Painted Boy with the whip that had striped him until they were both panting and sweat-sheened, and the Painted Boy stopped wanting it and felt nothing at all.

***

Einara was busy debriefing one of the Mouths, a lump of a man who had a knack for coaxing army officers to share their grievances about their superiors, when Topaz dashed in. He was dressed in his usual artful deshabille, but his eyes were wild with fear.

“It’s the Painted Boy! He’s in the tub outside the patrons’ lounge. He rolled in the snow and won’t come in.”

Einara needed to hear no more. She jumped to her feet, left the room, and dashed up the corridor, beckoning Topaz to follow. “Is Lars there? Svant?” Both were strong enough to carry Kai indoors if they had to.

“Nah, they’re off somewhere. We can haul him inside if you want, but he might raise a fuss.”

Einara understood: There were patrons in the lounge, and one of Hulda’s iron-clad rules was that patrons must never witness staff in disagreement or distress (unless the patrons had caused that distress intentionally).

“What set him off?” she asked as they reached the lounge’s entrance, two high double doors of knotty pine. Kai usually kept to himself in the lounge, nursing a drink in the corner while his fellow Jewels mingled and bantered and showed themselves off for the entertainment of patrons. They were required to spend a few hours a day there, pretending to have fun when they were actually on display, and Kai made it clear how he felt about that.

But he’d never made a scene before, and he’d been so even-keeled recently. His progress with Bors Dartán was making Hulda happy, and Kai seemed to relish his new role, analyzing each session with Bors in fervent detail with Einara afterward. He hadn’t complained about his sap dose for a whole ten-day.

It was still afternoon, so only a handful of boys occupied the sleek, pine-paneled room. Most of them clustered around the pool table under the violet halogen spotlights, their curious eyes going wide as Einara passed.

“It’s under control. Back to your game,” she said, reinforcing the command with an impatient gesture. They were just as aware as she was of the half-dozen patrons occupying the booths on the side walls, whose gaze was always on them.

She scanned those booths on her way past the black-lacquered bar at the back of the room. “Someone needs to distract Councillor Lindhardt before he figures out who the fuss is about. Jansha, get him a drink and sit on his lap.”

“On it.” The boy set down his own drink and slipped behind the bar.

The staff was starting to obey her, at least—that was something. Hulda had said they would eventually accept her authority, but Einara had barely believed it. Most of them had been here long enough to remember her as a emaciated, glassy-eyed girl who never spoke.

At the back of the lounge was a tiled coldroom that doubled as a changing room, stocked with warmly padded robes, slippers, and towels for patrons who wanted to brave the cold to sample the novelty of the hot tub on the terrace. It was the only outdoor space within the Brothel’s official limits, and staff weren’t permitted there unless they were entertaining a patron.

The rule was broken all the time, though, usually with impunity. Staff smoked on the terrace on milder days, basking in the sun. About a decade ago, a boy had stepped out of the hot tub—some said he’d been drinking, others disagreed—and walked calmly off the edge, where he fell fifteen stories to his death. Hulda’s predecessor had lost his directorship over the incident, and it went without saying that nothing similar could ever happen under hers.

_Kai, what are you thinking?_ Einara pulled a robe over her fleece and scuffed her feet into slippers. “You didn’t leave him alone, did you?” she asked Topaz with a hard look.

“Course not! Bers and Varsha are out there smoking. No patrons, though.”

“Good. Get suited up and wait here in case I need you.”

She headed for the sealed outer door, but a light voice called, “Take this first!” It was Flax, the good-natured submissive Jewel, dashing from inside to offer her a shot of vodka. “Keep you warm.”

Einara downed the shot and just managed to swallow. Topaz and Flax exchanged smiles at her light-weightness; she ignored them and launched herself at the door.

Stepping outdoors was like running into an icy wall. After months at a stretch indoors, she’d forgotten how the cold slammed into you, knocking the breath from your lungs and bringing tears to your eyes.

Thankfully, the vodka was hollowing out a warm cave in her chest. She floundered across the snow-swept flagstones in her too-big slippers, toward the steam that poured off the hot tub.

“He’s been in there going on fifteen minutes!” It was Bers, one of the two smokers, both of whom were booted and swathed in triple fleeces. “And first he made a fucking snow angel.” He gestured at the snowdrift on the edge of the roof, where the marks of Kai’s frolicking were apparent.

She signaled him to shut his trap. “Everything’s fine. Stay close.”

Kai sat with his back to them. He was naked, his clothes piled haphazardly on the edge, and as she came around to face him, she could see he was shivering, tiny icicles silvering his hair.

His cheeks didn’t have the telltale red of frostbite, though, and his eyes were alert. “Oh, it’s you,” he said, sounding disappointed. “I was expecting Lars or Svant.”

“Of course it’s me. No one else has as much patience with you.” She bent to pull his pants and briefs from the pile of clothes. “Come out and put these on.”

Kai’s eyes strayed from her, over the rooftops and buildings. “I’m in the sun here. I like the sun.”

“We’ll get you some hours in the sunroom tomorrow. You’re less likely to freeze to death there.”

When he didn’t answer, continuing his contemplation of the city, she knelt close and whispered, “If you don’t come inside this instant, the lads will have to drag you, and it’ll be a scene. Councillor Lindthardt will see. Hulda will know.”

“She’ll know either way.” His voice was dull. “You tell her everything.”

“That’s not all you should be worried about, though.” Shivering violently herself, her cheeks starting to numb, Einara put an edge on her voice. “Hulda gives me a certain freedom in dealing with you. It’s up to _me_ whether you get your dose. And if you end up in the infirmary, embarrassing me in front of Fir’n Director—”

She didn’t have to finish the sentence. Kai was already on his feet. “Fuck you,” he muttered, accepting the hand she offered to help him out onto the icy flagstones. “ _Not_ trying to hurt myself. Just getting some sun.”

Once out of the steam, he shook so badly that Einara had to hold the briefs and pants for him to step into. It was hard to miss the fresh welts on his pale skin, but she averted her eyes. She draped the fleece around his shoulders and led him toward the door, steadying him with an arm around his waist.

Barefoot, feeble from the collision of hot water and cold air, Kai hobbled like an old man. One of the smokers hastened to hold the door open, a startled look on his face. Had they all expected her to fail?

The door sealed behind them. Safe inside the coldroom, Einara eased Kai onto a bench and tugged off the fleece to get him into his shirt. “Thank everything green,” Topaz said breathlessly, peering over her shoulder. “Does he need the medic?”

“No. Ask the scut-boy to bring brandy and tea to Kai’s room, though, please.” She turned back to Kai, who was struggling to work his buttons. “Do you think you can walk through the lounge without attracting attention?”

He nodded, his face shuttered. “It’s almost time for my dose.”

“Yes. It is. Are these your boots?” She lined them up for him. “Come along, and we’ll be there in a moment.”

Kai kept shuddering, his hair plastered to his face in dark streaks. But he strode through the lounge straight-backed, without a misstep or a glance to either side. Beside him, Einara did her best to ignore the prying glances.

When the double doors fell shut, leaving them in the solitude of the corridor, Kai slumped against the wall. She took hold of his waist again, letting him use her shoulder for a crutch.

“I’m okay, really. You’re not even helping.” But he didn’t push her away, and together they shuffled their way back to the dorms.

Topaz had been quick; the kettle and brandy were waiting on a tray outside Kai’s room. Einara brought in the tray and poured. Kai threw himself down on his bed.

“Sit up. You need this.” She watched as he downed the brandy in one gulp, then took several swallows of the tea. “Are those clothes damp? Do you need new ones?”

“Want to see me strip again?” He shot her an unconvincing leer, then emptied the tumbler and rolled over to face the wall, desolation closing over his face like a mask again. “’M fine. Nothing frozen. Just wait here for my dose.”

“You’ll get it at the usual time.” Sitting on the bed, looking at his back, Einara tried to imagine what Hulda would do.

The director liked to say that sometimes people needed to be forced into line and sometimes they needed to be “gentled.” Einara knew how to gentle patrons and Hulda—rub their aching muscles, speak sweetly and soothingly. But Kai knew her tricks, and he needed something more than a massage right now.

She inched closer. “Did something happen, Kai? With a patron?”

Silence.

“You’ve done so well with Bors. I thought maybe you were feeling better.”

He grunted. “I don’t need a fucking counselor to discuss my feelings with. I need my dose. You want to keep me happy? Let the patrons give me tips again.”

“I could do that.” She rested her fingertips on his shoulder. “But then you would drown again, and you wouldn’t have your wits about you for your sessions with Bors Dartán. You’d lose his trust. Eventually maybe he’d stop wanting to see you at all. And you wouldn’t be any use to us.”

“What a fucking tragedy.” Kai shuddered, drawing the fleece tighter around him. “My patrons would still like me just fine. How about you stop trying to make me into something I’m not?”

_You need to learn to believe in yourselves as much as I believe in you._ That was what Colonel Thibault in Resurgence told her recruits before she sent them off to face trials that ended with most of them going home in disgrace, sometimes with visible scars and always with invisible ones. But when Einara was fifteen, those words had kept her alive, ringing in her ears day and night: _I believe in you._

“Maybe I believe in you more than you believe in yourself,” she said, tentatively stroking Kai’s damp hair. Was this a good time to seduce him?

He made a choked, scoffing noise. “You don’t give a fuck about me. Nobody does and nobody should.”

Before she could answer, he shook her off and sat up, ripping off the fleece as if he were burning up. “Stop trying to act like Hulda. You and I both know you’re just a pathetic little Outer tart who happened to catch her eye.”

The wolfish edge on his voice made Einara shrink. “ _I_ don’t think I’m pathetic. And neither are you.”

“Right, right.” Kai’s voice was thick with that ugly irony that Reddans were so good at. “You’re an Outer, though, so your standards are different. You’re probably just happy to sleep in a warm bed and not have to piss in the snow. Not to mention, you’ve actually got it easier than me here. Do you even have to service patrons anymore? Or just Fir’n Director?”

Einara inched away, but he grabbed her shoulders and wrenched her toward him. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes glittering. “So high and mighty for a barbarian. But I bet when she touches you, you pretend you like it, just like any other whore.”

“I’m not ashamed.”

“Yeah? Is Hulda the only one you pretend for?” With one easy motion, he yanked up her shirt and camisole and gave her breast a contemptuous squeeze. “Oh, yeah. I can see why she likes you. What do you think she’d say if I tried to take a piece?”

Einara barely felt his fingers close on her flesh; she never did anymore. She went still in his hands, suddenly seeing the scene like an observer, at a safe remove.

It would be easy to lie back and let him have her, but it wouldn’t lead anywhere useful. It wasn’t what he really wanted.

She yanked herself away and gave him a hard slap across the face. “Don’t ever touch me without my permission.”

Kai cupped a hand over his red cheek. His eyes were tearing. After a long moment, he said, “Sorry. I—that was fucked up. Sorry.”

Einara nodded judiciously, accepting the apology. Then she pulled her shirt over her head, tossed it to the floor, and looked at him. “Is this what you’d like? To have me? Would it make you feel better?”

His eyes moved over her with an expression on the knife-edge between lust and repulsion. “What’s that supposed to mean? Now I have your permission?”

“You do.”

Kai reached out and flicked a nipple with his thumb. “You’re a cold little piece of work, you know that? I should take you at your word.”

“Go ahead.” She rolled onto her back and raised her arms over her head in a posture of surrender. “Take me.”

His mouth twitched. “Do you _really_ think you can sex me into being a good boy? Like I’m trying to do with Bors?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have a magic cunt or something?”

She shrugged. “Find out.”

Another easy motion of those fluid muscles, and he was on top of her, his weight crushing her into the mattress. One large hand pinioned her wrists. His erection dug into her thigh, and she raised her hips to meet it. This was a contest of wills now, and she was willing to go as far as it took. If he thought he could humble her with rough hands or his cock, he was wrong.

Kai breathed in harsh pants: brandy and sweat and chlorine from the tub. His lank hair tickled her forehead.

“How would you like me?” she asked curiously. “Wanting it, or struggling?”

Kai rutted hard against her, sending another blast of brandy breath in her face. “I want you to stop controlling everything. I want to make you _feel_ something.”

Einara went limp as he used his free hand to tug down her lower layers of clothing. She arched her back and squirmed experimentally, in case he did want a struggle. “You’re so strong. And so _big_. If you’re not careful, you might hurt me.”

Kai reared up and glared down at her. “Don’t give me the bullshit you give patrons, or I _will_ hurt you. Stop trying to manage me. Do you think I don’t have the balls to fuck you just because I’ve spent so many years bending over?”

“Oh, you have balls, all right.”

“Be honest. You think I sap too much to keep it up. That’s the only reason you’re offering.”

Most men wanted to hear how virile they were, but she saw now he craved something different—her contempt. It was what he thought he deserved; perhaps even the slap had turned him on.

He was all wasted potential, and it made her sad—she hadn’t been lying when she told Bors that. Maybe, with some work, she could make something better of him.

She curved her lips in a taunting smile. “I’ll believe you can fuck me when I feel you come inside me. Why’s it taking so long?”

He thrust against her again, harder than ever, then reached down to free himself from the loose fabric. “Fine, let’s go. Turn over—I don’t want to have to look at your smarmy face.”

Released, she flipped over obediently and rose to hands and knees. His body covered hers again, the muscled legs pushing hers apart, the hard cock rubbing long and heavy between her thighs.

When he kissed and mouthed at the back of her neck, tickling it with his hair, Einara felt a shiver of answering arousal. The sensation was so foreign that it was easy to shut away in a mental drawer. She observed her own feelings coldly as Kai tangled his hands in her hair, his mouth warm and wet and demanding, moving from her neck to her earlobe to her shoulder.

He was beautiful in his abandon, sweaty and musky—a grown man and not a boy, whatever they might call him here. She wondered if Bors Dartán felt the same craving to have all that inside him. From everything Kai had said, it sounded like Bors longed to roll over for his schoolmate, even if he wasn’t ready to admit it yet.

She kept her own cravings at a safe distance as Kai eased a finger inside her and then a second one. A third finger artfully found the right spot. She arched her back again, impaling herself—only to strain toward him, whimpering theatrically, as he abruptly removed all three at once.

Instead of mounting her properly, he rolled off her and sat up. “Fuck it,” he said shakily, tucking himself back into his pants. “You’re not even wet.”

She lay where she was, more shocked than she wanted to admit. “You’ve forgotten how to use lube?”

“I shouldn’t need to.”

“How considerate.”

“Don’t try to goad me into hurting you.”

Einara’s head was pounding angrily. “You’re assuming you _could_ hurt me. Don’t be so sure.”

“You’re fucked in the head, Einara. Do you even get off on anything?”

_Do you?_ She was too tired and frustrated to bother covering herself. “You might _like_ hurting me. It might do you some good to hurt someone for a change.”

“No.” Kai’s voice was choked.

That steadied Einara a little. “Maybe it would, though. It must be so hard to do what you do.” His mind must be a very confusing place— _focus on that. Give him clarity_. “But we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Kai, lie down by me.”

“Piece of work,” Kai muttered, but he lay down.

Though there’d been no consummation, Einara felt a new ease with his body, its weight and smells and textures. So much weakness inside a strong envelope. She pressed her face against his shoulder. “I can’t let you drown, Kai.”

She expected to be lectured about using his given name, but he only said, “What do you care? You’re just following Hulda’s orders.”

Einara pulled her fleece to her and drew it over both of them. Maybe he wasn’t so weak after all—his rejection just another move in their game, like her offer. The only way to win was by jogging him out of his self-destructive funk. But how?

Kai despised Hulda, and as long as he believed she was Hulda’s creature, he would never trust her. It was risky to do what she had in mind, but she was tired of taking tiny steps toward her goal. He needed to understand who was really using him—and Bors.

She breathed in his ear, “Can I tell you a secret, Kai? I don’t work for Hulda, not really.”

He stiffened. “What do you mean? Who do you work for?”

_Colonel Thibault. Myself._ The answers overlapped in Einara’s head—one true in the past, the other true now, and both too dangerous to say aloud. “I can’t say. But it’s not Hulda, and I can tell you Hulda’s made mistakes that give me leverage over her.” _Like being a shirker_.

Kai propped himself up on one elbow, looking actually unsettled. “Fuck, this is getting too cryptic for me. All I want is my dose.”

“Kai, open your eyes.” She made her voice a whiplash, remembering how he responded to roughness. “You’re not here because you’re not a ‘good Oslov.’ You’re here because your precious Oslov is an illusion. You’ve heard what your friend Bors says about Councillor Karishkov. He overlooks treason when he feels like it. And the Councillors who hurt you? They do that to convince themselves they’re better than you are. Even they don’t really believe in the system.”

Kai lowered his head beside hers again. “That’s treason. You don’t even know what you’re saying, a barbarian like you, but—”

“I know exactly what I’m saying.” Einara pressed her forehead to his shoulder, keeping her voice low. “What’s the difference between you and Bors? Why should he tell you what to do? Because of a test score?”

“Well, but—”

“Don’t try to reason with me—I’m a barbarian, remember? I can’t understand. What you Oslovs call merit is really just power. Look at Tilrey Bronn, having a child with an Upstart and making his Councillor lover hide it. That’s power. If we used what we know about him as leverage, we might be able to make him use his power for us.”

“Us?” Kai stroked her hair—tentative, as if she scared him a little. “What do you even want power for? You can’t change Oslov.”

_Not change it. Destroy it_. _Make it pay._ She held the words back. “Power has plenty of uses. I want to take over this place from Hulda, sooner rather than later. I want to run it my way.”

This, at least, Kai seemed to grasp. “You’re a little mad, you know, Einara? You sound like Bors when he gets going about the security of the Republic. Only he’s Int/Sec, and you’re . . .”

“Nothing. Trash. I know.” She leaned into his warmth—the well-developed lean muscle, the height, the solidity of him. A body built for war that was being used for pleasure. “But how can I ever be more than nothing if I don’t fight, Kai? Some of us do fight. We don’t give up and drown.”

She braced herself for an outburst, but he was silent, his breath stirring her hair. At length, he drew her head onto his chest. “Either you’re trying to entrap me, feeding me treasonous talk, or you’re going to get yourself killed because you’re completely insane.”

“Maybe.”

There was more she could have said to persuade him, much more, but Einara hadn’t forgotten the deadly mistake she’d made with Irin Dartán. She’d told Kai as much as she dared, and now she waited.

He could easily report her to his friend Bors, to the inspectors, to one of his patrons. But how much did he stand to gain? With his defaced body and sap-addled brain, he was an outcast, practically an outlaw. The most the government would give him as a reward was respectable obscurity, and she suspected he’d lost any appetite for respectability long ago.

Being a Brothel whore might have many drawbacks, but it did give you clearer eyes.

Kai sighed, warm against her cheek, and pulled her closer. “You’re insane, like one of those betrayed wives in the sagas, but I’ll keep quiet. Not because I agree with you. I just want to see what you’ll do next.”

She kissed his nipple, the one without the tattoo. “Good enough.”

“Make no mistake, when they take you away in cuffs, I want to be there, too.” He spoke tartly, but his hand stroked her hair. “What a show that’ll be.”

“So my madness entertains you. Good. Next time you feel like hurting yourself, come to me instead. Maybe someday you can even make me come for you.”

Kai’s laugh sounded like it hurt. “I should be so lucky.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is practically the first time I've written M/F in this world—Vera/Tilrey doesn't count for me because it's so glossed over—and it was ... interesting! Different! I hope it works in some way. Thanks for reading! <3


	10. A Good Eye

The Painted Boy lay on his back on a chaise longue in the sunroom, soaking up the precious light that flooded through the vaulted glass roof. He’d been skeptical when Einara suggested he come in here, but she had a point. When the sun was at the right angle, it sent him into a blissful haze that felt almost like being sap-drowned. It never lasted long enough, and his spirits fell with the darkness, but it was something.

If only he were alone. But the sunroom was a favorite setting for photoshoots, and right now five half-naked lads occupied the center of the room. They draped themselves over an elegant steel-framed sofa for a group shot, while the photographer called out commands: “Vansha, a little to the left. Lesta, put your head right on his shoulder. Other shoulder. Okay, just like that. Bers, would you stop giving me the eye? You’re supposed to focus on _them_. You adore each other, and you’re in the middle of an orgy, and you’re feeling pure bliss.”

One of the boys cackled. “Hear that, Olli? Pure bliss. Stop jabbing me with your bony elbow.”

“That was Vansha,” Olli shot back.

The Painted Boy rolled over and tried to tune them out. At least these days he had something to think about besides what a fuck-up he was—namely, the batshit crazy little barbarian who was currently calling most of the shots in his life.

The irony. He was a Meirthal, from a long and solid line. Here he was with designs painted all over his body, having fantasies about a mentally disturbed Outer girl who would probably end up dying under torture in a cell, sooner rather than later.

He couldn’t stop thinking about what had almost happened in his room five nights ago. Not fucking Einara per se—that was nothing. Back in his glory days, and sometimes even here in the Brothel, he’d had his pick of girls and boys both. No, his fantasies were about melting her icy composure and making her come, gasping helplessly under him. He’d made cold-fish Bors writhe with pleasure, so why not?

Why not indeed? Because nothing he did seemed to affect Einara in the slightest. When they met for her to give him his dose, she didn’t even blush. When they discussed his latest session with Bors, she gazed at him with such earnest detachment that _he_ started blushing.

The Painted Boy knew he was acting like a schoolboy. He needed to rise to Einara’s challenge and get her out of his system, but he was too proud to suggest they finish what he’d so recklessly broken off.

“Excuse me!” It was Karina, the photographer, peering over the back of his chaise longue. “We need the light over here. Would you mind moving to the other side of the room?”

The Painted Boy pulled the sun shade from his eyes and glared at her. “I was here first.”

Didn’t she even remember his name? When Kai first came to the Brothel, this dry little woman had spent nearly two hours posing him in all sorts of ways, half-clothed and naked, ordering him to “be natural” till he trembled with humiliation. To make matters worse, Hulda stopped in to watch the session, both of them no doubt enjoying his embarrassment. He was already used to trading his body for sap in those days, but he wasn’t used to displaying it to all and sundry.

Karina was unfazed. “I’m sorry, but the director wants to see proofs tonight.”

_What the fuck ever._ The Painted Boy rose from the chaise and gathered his robe around him. In the background, Bers was murmuring to the photographer, probably making excuses for him. All his colleagues knew he received special allowances and why—or part of why, anyway.

Instead of finding another sun-flooded corner to settle in, the Painted Boy sat down just behind the photographer on the sofa the others had abandoned. From there, he could watch through the viewfinder of the camera on the tripod as Karina coached the five lads into another orgiastic tableau.

Everything looked different in the viewfinder—placid, hazy, unreal. The boys stopped being unruly louts who threw food in the caf and bickered over cards in the staff lounge. They became fantasy lovers, heavy-lidded and dreamy, the sun limning their shapely forms. He could almost imagine they were genuinely into this orgy thing.

Had he looked so enticing in Karina’s pictures, too? And Einara—his mind drifted as he imagined her under sunlight instead of ghastly fluorescence. The almost-transparent skin, the blue veins throbbing just beneath—a Feudal princess.

A fucking _Outer_. But that was how it worked in the sagas: People were always getting obsessed with inappropriate partners. He’d degraded himself in every other way—why not this one?

The odd thing was, the Painted Boy didn’t feel degraded. For the first time in years, he felt _engaged_. Together, in their different ways, Bors and Einara gave him things to look forward to.

Karina had returned to her tripod and was fussing with it, blocking his view. She kept making the boys readjust their positions—an inch to the left, an inch to the right, a hand on a hip instead of swinging free. The lads murmured and fidgeted, eager to be done with the shot, but something wasn’t right.

When Karina dodged over to the group to show Vansha what she meant about angling his groin away from the camera—“You don’t need to _vamp_ the viewer”—the Painted Boy got a good look through the viewfinder again. The tableau was almost perfect. But sure enough, something was wrong.

In a flash, his brain rearranged the grouping. Then he was speaking aloud: “Bers should be on his knees in front of Vansha. That way his face catches the light, and we focus on that instead of Vansha’s ugly monster cock.”

“Speak for yourself,” Vansha said good-naturedly, shooting an obscene gesture in the Painted Boy’s direction.

That was all the response the Painted Boy thought his suggestion deserved. To his surprise, though, the photographer went still, staring into space as if she, too, were mentally rearranging the scene.

Then she said, “He’s right. Bersha, on your knees. No, turn your face toward the window. Now a little toward me. Yes . . .”

The Painted Boy didn’t bother to watch the rest of the shoot. He rolled over on the sofa and covered his eyes with the sun shade and sank into a fitful doze, doing his best to soak up the light before it vanished. Only six hours till his next dose, and his preference was to spend them all unconscious. But there was a session with Lindthardt first.

After that, he would see Einara, and he would see Bors tomorrow. _Focus on that._ Maybe he’d make Einara blush this time if he gazed at her meaningfully enough, silently reminding her of how she’d reared up against him. He would make her blush, yes. And someday he’d make her come, and then he would turn Bors to putty in his hands and hand Bors over to Einara like a prize— _see what I can do_ —and then . . .

And then? What would he have left to look forward to?

He opened his eyes to find himself alone. The sky beyond the glass had darkened to violet, greenish above the western skyline.

As the Painted Boy sat up and stretched, a voice said behind him, “You have a knack for that, you know. A good eye for composition.”

He turned with a start and found Karina folding up her lighting equipment. “That’s not all I have a knack for,” he said snidely.

“Hmm, yes. But some things don’t last forever, and you’re past thirty, aren’t you?”

Age was not the Painted Boy’s favorite subject. He opened his mouth to tell her to fuck off, but she said, “I’m sorry. What I should have said is that I’ve been looking for an apprentice. My last candidate took it into his head to seduce an Admin, who got him a nice position in the Sector and a nice wife. He won’t set foot here anymore.”

“What a shame.” The Painted Boy was so busy making his words drip with sarcasm that it took him a minute to register the full meaning of hers. “You think _I_ could be your apprentice? Learn to take photos? But I’m . . .”

He didn’t need to finish.

Karina nodded. “Hulda mentioned you’ve reduced your dose, and that made me wonder. Would you like a chance to learn another posting?”

The Painted Boy bit his lip. Hadn’t she heard about the incident in the hot tub? “Hulda would have to allow it,” he said at last.

“Of course. I’d speak to her. And even if she says yes, you’ll need to show up on time and keep your hands steady and your wits about you. If you can’t manage that, I’ll have you out on your ass soon enough. But I’m desperate enough to give anyone a chance, Kai.” She sighed. “Even you. So give it some thought and get back to me.”

She didn’t wait for an answer, just lugged her tools out of the sunroom, leaving the Painted Boy to wonder whether he’d been complimented or simply reminded how soon his “career” here might be over. At least she remembered his name after all.

***

He told Einara the whole story the same evening while he took his dose, dipping a finger in the vial to draw it out as long as possible. He told it like a joke, but she didn’t laugh, just sat at one end of his bed and looked at him in the earnest way that emphasized the elegance of her cheekbones and wide-spaced eyes.

“I like this idea,” she said. “If I become director, you’ll need a more proper job as well.”

Kai rolled his eyes, feeling sap spread slowly, slowly through his veins. His arms and wrists were sore from being bound, but the session with Lindthardt was already a foggy memory. For now he could be Kai, not the Painted Boy. He liked how she said his name, rolling it carefully off her tongue. He could sometimes hear now how she strained to sound like a Reddan and not an Outer, but he no longer felt any temptation to mock her for it.

_I really need to fuck her. I have it bad._

He stretched one leg the length of the bed and allowed his bare toe to graze Einara’s thigh. “If Hulda heard you making plans to replace her, she’d boil you alive. What if she bugged the room?”

“She didn’t. I checked while you were out; I check every day or so.” She raised her blue eyes to him. “Or were you joking just now? Sometimes I can’t tell.”

“No, you can’t, can you?”

He waggled his toes; she took hold of his foot and massaged it absently. “Well, _I’m_ not joking. Hulda’s old, and I’m clever enough to run this place. The lads already do what I say. And you—if you were the Brothel photographer, you’d have an excuse to watch them and report back to me on any secrets they were keeping.”

She certainly thought like a Brothel director. “I thought you were working for a shadowy someone,” Kai said in an undertone, dipping his finger in the vial again. “Don’t you have some treasonous mission to be about?”

As he spoke, he reassured himself that Einara was not working for anyone; she was mad and would be put away sooner or later, for her own good, before she could do any real harm. Maybe she was a religious fanatic who hated technology, like the Free Northmen. As for him—well, he wasn’t important enough to punish, and he had friends in high places.

He didn’t like the thought of her being hurt, though.

“That’s where the Free Northmen come in,” Einara said, dead serious, her strong fingers still kneading his heel. “The leader sounds very charismatic, capable of mustering a large force of Laborers, but I wonder if he knows how to use that power. If I could just get to him, I could give him a plan that goes beyond planting trees.”

Maybe he’d been all too right in his supposition. “You’ll tell these crazy bearded fucks how to invade Redda?”

“An outright invasion would lead to a massacre. But there are other ways.”

Kai groaned and sat up, tugging his foot from her hands. “Einara, you scare me sometimes. Do you even realize what you’re saying? Have you been thinking bizarre shit like this all along?”

She smiled—a sly flash. “Do I still entertain you? Or only scare you?”

He flicked the empty vial away. “Both.”

“And do you still want to have me? Anyway?”

_Yes._ But if he had her the way patrons did, straining on top of her pliant, unresponsive body, he would be just another patron, another man to be used and thrown away. “I want to show you something,” he said.

“Oh?” She cocked her head.

“Yeah.” Kai reached for her braid and tugged it gently toward him, over her shoulder. “Lie down on your back.”

Einara lay down. “Are you still obsessed with pleasuring me?”

“Shhh. Close your eyes. Relax.” He kissed her hairline and each of her eyelids in turn, then barely brushed his lips across hers. “Fir’n Councillor Lindblom’s taught me a few things. Any idiot can go through the motions, but pleasuring a woman is all about withholding and giving and withholding again, and it’s an art.”

“Oh, is it?” Her tone was sarcastic, but she didn’t open her eyes, and when he teased the inside of her thigh with his fingertips, she shivered. “So, this is what Councillor Lindblom likes?”

“It would be indiscreet of me to say.” He let his fingers run ever so slowly up to her pubic mound, then lowered himself to kiss her there, her clothing still between them. _Slowly, ever so slowly._ Lindblom had taught him that principle by smacking and whipping him when he was impatient. At least some of his training was coming in handy.

He pressed his forehead against her, then reached up to sneak a finger under the waistband of her track pants. Instead of yanking them down, he stroked her bare stomach fleetingly with his thumb, then returned to teasing her through the fabric. “But I bet _you’re_ going to like it. Just let it happen—no faking.”

She laughed—a skeptical, not especially friendly laugh, even as her body continued to warm to his touch. “Do you know how many patrons have warned me not to fake it? They can never tell, Kai. Never.”

He bent to kiss her stomach, then gave it a furtive, flicking lick. “ _I’ll_ be able to tell. And if you fake it with me, I’ll never, ever do this again.”

“And I’ll be very sorry, I suppose.” A sudden harsh gasp belied her tone.

Kai didn’t speak anymore. He had better things to do with his mouth.

***

The last thing Bors expected when he arrived for his regular assignation in Kai’s room was to find Einara already there. The two of them were drinking tea on the chaise, looking so cozy that he stopped dead in the doorway, feeling like an interloper.

“Am I early?” But even as he spoke, they both got up. Kai came and wrapped an arm around Bors’s shoulders to draw him over to the chaise.

“Come have a cup with us, love—Fir, I mean.” Kai chuckled, clearly not sorry for his mistake, and sat Bors down on the spot that Einara had vacated. “We were just discussing what a boring time you must have sitting underground in fluorescent light all day long.

“It’s not boring at all.” Stiffly, Bors took the tumbler that Einara had poured for him. Why did she have to be there when he desperately wanted to be enfolded in Kai’s arms? “Please don’t let me chase you away,” he said in a clipped, distant way—his work voice.

Kai fetched a stool. “You heard the Fir, Einara. Sit.”

Einara remained standing. “Kai is trying to be funny, Fir,” she said in her respectful way. “We weren’t actually talking about you. We were talking about how to heighten a sense of civic responsibility in our staff so they can rejoin the regular workforce when they choose.”

Kai guffawed, then sat down so close to Bors that the sap on his breath was palpable. “You suck-up. We’d never discuss anything like that.”

“Maybe you should.” Bors drank his tea perched primly on the chaise, trying to suppress his usual reaction to Kai’s closeness. “Maybe you should discuss how _you_ , in particular, could safely lower your dosage and give yourself more choices in life.”

“I don’t need more choices!” Kai tousled Bors’s hair, spreading a hot blush over Bors’s face. “Why can’t we just enjoy the moment? I’m drinking tea in the sun with my two favorite people.”

“Your one favorite person,” Einara said crisply. “I’m off now.” At the door, though, she paused. “And if you want the strict truth, Fir, before you came in, Kai was telling me it’s a shame your superiors haven’t seen fit to promote you higher.”

Bors squirmed in Kai’s arms, too mortified to look at her. “Kai! Have I ever, even once, complained to you about my superiors?”

“Several times, actually.” Kai really seemed to be enjoying himself. “But who’s counting? And no, you haven’t specifically mentioned a promotion, but you _should_ get one, or at least more respect from that Councillor Karishkov. Don’t you agree?”

Bors gave Kai a stern look, reminding him not to criticize anything about the Republic in front of an Outer. “That’s not your concern—or hers.”

“Oh, green hells, where’s my proper respect and deference? Forgive me, Fir.” Kai mimed a deep bow. “I’m just a poor addled addict, and she’s a barbarian. You’ll have to forgive us for saying occasional outrageous things. Just now, believe it or not, Einara was quoting Whyberg to me about Raised Laborers—what were you saying, Einara?”

Einara said, “It’s not my place to quote Whyberg. I realize that, Fir.”

Bors gave her a hard look—could she be making fun of him, just like Kai? “It’s appropriate for any citizen to quote the Founder, provided they do it accurately and respectfully. Where did you read Whyberg, if I may ask?”

“We have a library here. A small one for the education of staff.” She met his gaze, earnest and tentative. “Citizenship means something to me, Fir. I may not remember verbatim, but I believe the Founder said the circumstances of a person’s birth should never impede their future advancement, because ‘Great oaks from tiny acorns grow.’ The last part is a translated Harbourer proverb,” she added in an undertone.

“A Tangle proverb, yes.” Bors nodded—too enthusiastically, he knew. Kai probably thought this was hilarious. Bors knew the passage well, though, because he’d found great comfort in it when he was in school. He used it to keep up his spirits through nights of studying, despite not being able to visualize either an oak or an acorn.

“It’s a beautiful sentiment.” Hands clasped, Einara lowered her eyes. “As if your leader wants to say that he believes in you, in every single citizen and their potential to grow into something great with hard work. In the Wastes, among Outers, it’s not like that at all. The strong always rule, and they rule without pity. Once someone climbs a mountain, they never offer a hand to help their fellow struggler up.”

“That’s _exactly_ it.” Bors was so impressed with this defense of his principles—from the mouth of an Outer, no less—that he almost forgot about Kai’s warm embrace. “Come sit down so we can talk properly,” he urged. “You didn’t finish your tea.”

Kai groaned. “If the two of you are going to geek out on Whyberg, you might as well just give me a lethal injection.”

Bors met Einara’s eyes and found the slightest amusement there. “Kai’s always been like this,” he said, patting his lover’s knee. “Once, when we had to analyze passages of founding texts, he asked to copy mine. I told him no, of course.”

“’Cause you’ve got a stick up your ass,” Kai said, but his hand snaked tenderly around Bors’s waist and gave it a squeeze. “Fine, she can stay. Just don’t expect me to be awake for all of it.”

“Do stay a minute,” Bors said. He was beginning to feel less embarrassed and more—well, _proud_ , almost, of Kai’s affection. Einara had read Whyberg, which meant she respected him for his merit as well as agreeing with him that Kai had untapped potential. Some of her opinions might well be rough or extreme, given her origin, but he could educate her.

“We have enough time for tea, don’t we?” he asked as Einara yielded to his pleas and settled herself on the stool. “And then later, well . . .”

Kai hooked his chin over Bors’s shoulder and nuzzled his neck. “I hope you’re not suggesting we let _her_ in on our fun?”

Bors’s face was red hot again. “I—that’s not what I was suggesting at all.”

“No, I didn’t think that was your thing.” Kai kissed him behind the ear. “Sorry, Einara. You and Bors can have your teatime and political theory, and then he’s all mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will end in about four more chapters, to be followed by a new chapter of "All Kinds of Broken" and another snippet of Ceill growing up. Much as I like these new characters, I am starting to miss my Gersha and Tilrey, so I need a dose of them the way Kai needs sap. :) Thanks for reading!


	11. Husbandry

Fall turned into winter turned into spring, and life in the Sanctioned went on more or less as usual. A few older staff members retired; a few young ones came on. The Jewel named Ruby fell passionately in love with an undistinguished girl named Lara, and they left to get married and reproduce. Everyone declared, with half-scandalized amusement, that Ruby had never been properly cut out for Brothel life anyway.

Hulda gave her permission to Kai’s new apprenticeship, after some adroit persuasion from Einara. As he began spending hours at the editing terminal with Karina, then toting her equipment to various shoots, Kai sometimes regretted his decision. The sap in his system, which so helpfully clouded his brain for sessions with patrons, made it devilishly hard to focus on learning new skills. His eyes were always dry and itchy. He was late to work several times, to Karina’s frustration, and always exhausted afterward.

But he kept doggedly on, because he was more and more fascinated by the whole process: composing an image, finding the right play of light and shadow, choosing the best shots and using digital tools to perfect them. In the editing room, the sordid realities of the Brothel became exquisite phantoms, and crafting those phantoms was weirdly empowering.

He began hoarding his sap ration, saving it for sessions with difficult patrons. He wanted to be clearer-headed—not just for photography but for the time he spent with Bors and Einara, separately and together. He needed all his wits to interact with them, particularly _her_.

Kai and Einara spent a night together every ten-day or so, whenever the urge drew them inexorably toward each other. Though they hadn’t technically fucked, because he hadn’t yet felt convinced she actually wanted to, he had met her initial challenge and then some.

Still she teased him, going hot and cold. Sometimes Kai became convinced she was faking her enthusiasm, and then he had to prove himself all over again, wooing her with sweet gestures in and out of bed. She laughed when he brought her two imported oranges stolen from a patron’s buffet. “For me? Is this puppy love?” But she didn’t refuse them.

One night, Kai dozed off after a mutually satisfying encounter and woke to find three nearly full vials lined up on the bedspread—his secret sap cache. “What?” he said groggily. “Did you . . . ?”

Einara wound a strand of his hair idly round her finger. “Do you have a new sideline in selling your surplus V, my love?”

“Of course not!” Kai snatched the vials; even now, with his actual daily dose shrinking, the sight of them made him desperately possessive. “You’re not cutting my dose,” he growled. “And you shouldn’t snoop through my things.”

Einara stroked his forehead with her index finger as if to smooth something away. “But if you only _need_ one vial a day?”

“That’s for me to decide.” Kai got up, pushing her aside, and stowed his V back where they belonged. “No fucking privacy. You’re the very devil, you know that? A sneaky little devil from the Wastes.”

Then he sank back into bed and wound his arms around her naked body and pressed his face against her, unable to bear the thought of losing her warm embrace. Whether she was crazy or not, he needed her to keep goading him to be something more than what he was, something better. “I didn’t mean that, ’Nara,” he murmured. “Was just startled.”

“I know.”

“Please don’t tell Hulda my business. Please don’t side with her against me. You’re all I have.”

***

A few days later, Einara met Svesinov the steward in the pantry. Every ten-day, she came to hand him the pouch of sap vials that Hulda had collected from her staff and scrupulously counted. These Svesinov brought to the Outer Ring, where he traded them to the Free Northmen for surplus and illicit goods.

As always, Svesinov took the pouch with no acknowledgment of her existence, pausing only to note Hulda’s count before turning to leave. But this time Einara said, “Wait.”

He wheeled toward her, brows raised.

Perhaps he was still surprised to be reminded Einara could speak, something she didn’t do when she arrived at the Brothel. Her time at the garrison in the Wastes had robbed her of her voice. For her first few years among Oslovs, she hovered above herself and watched with indifference as these people ( _barbarians, godless, damned_ ) used her physical envelope as they chose.

During that time, the other whores sometimes goaded her in cruel ways—pinching her, tripping her, even hurling rice balls at her in the caf. Her silence was a challenge to them; it was a form of power, and any power provokes the powerless. She understood that now.

But Svesinov, who wielded power in the Brothel, never tried to stop the torment. Once, in fact, he stood by with a lazy smile as two girls locked Einara in the broom closet, hoping to make her yell and pound on the door. She stayed in the dark for hours, curled up in a silent ball.

These days, every time the steward was obliged to interact with her, his dismissive glances said he remembered what she _really_ was, what she would still be after Hulda got tired of her. But silence had its uses. Einara had watched Svesinov for a long time, hanging quietly around the margins of his daily routine. He might not notice her, but she noticed him.

Now she looked straight at him and said, “Next ten-day, I bring the pouch to the Free Northmen. You’ll stay here.”

Svesinov’s brows shot even higher. “You’re not allowed out.”

Einara had bided her time, but she could wait no longer to see the Northmen for herself. “From what I understand,” she said in her most correct Reddan Oslov, “Topaz is allowed out every two months. Yet every single ten-day, and sometimes _twice_ a ten-day, I see Topaz handing you two vials, after which you open the side door for him so he can go visit the lover and bastard child he keeps in Ring Six.”

For a moment, Svesinov just stared at her. “You have no idea what you saw.”

“I think I have a good enough idea to tell Fir’n Director. I don’t think she granted Topaz this special allowance. And she listens to me.”

The steward raised his hand as if to strike Einara, his jaw tightening. When she failed to flinch, he let the hand fall to his side. In a tense voice, as if reasoning with an Outer went against every fiber of his being, he said, “Topaz needs to see his daughter. The rules are hard on him.”

“Fir’n Director makes the rules, not us.”

“You’re a barbarian. What would you know about family bonds?”

_The irony_. Einara pushed the murderous rage away into the same cramped drawer where she shoved all emotions until they became useful. She shrugged. “I have no interest in disrupting Topaz’s family visits. All I want is to carry the pouch next ten-day. You will say nothing, as I’m saying nothing to Hulda about you.”

Svesinov seemed shaken. “If you don’t come back from the Outer Ring, Hulda will know, and she’ll have my hide.”

Einara made herself smile serenely. “This is my home, Fir Steward, and Fir’n Director and I have an understanding. Why would I try to run away?”

***

Kai grunted on top of Bors, his hips spasming and making Bors grunt, too. “You okay down there? I’m trying to go slow.”

Bors wanted to say, “I’m okay. Really,” but all he managed was a nod and a whimper. He’d known Kai was big, but to have all that inside him was stretching him to his limit, despite their careful preparations. On his back, with his fingers digging into Kai’s hips, he had occasional panicky moments of feeling smothered. But Kai was being so careful, and the combination of bruising weight with protective gentleness just made Bors more excited.

“I can go slower. Really.” Kai sounded breathless. The sharpness of his sweat hung in the air. “Or we can even take a break if you want, or try it another time. You know I won’t mind.”

Bors shook his head frantically. His glasses were off, and Kai’s beautiful face was a blur above him, blending into the light behind it. “More,” he whispered.

“If you’re sure.” And Kai started to move again.

It felt completely different from what had happened with Tilrey, though Bors had been so wild with shame and self-hatred and perverse triumph during that encounter that he supposed he hadn’t felt anything properly. He remembered pain and outrage and an expert hand on his cock, and then somehow reaching release. No tenderness.

Kai was using a clever hand, too, the stroking making Bors’s hips pump helplessly so that Kai’s cock could slide deeper inside him. Bors moaned with every inch, and a tiny voice inside him reproached: _Slut, just like your mother._

But he couldn’t help it; the fullness and the friction were too good. Kai avoided putting his full weight on Bors, thrusting his cock home by agonizing degrees. The slow progress made Bors acutely aware of the awkwardness of his position, spread-eagled on his back and stretched wider and wider for Kai—and that awareness, which should have brought him to his senses, just made him buck and moan louder.

_I belong to him._ Which was ridiculous. Kai was a whore, a Drudge, and Bors was an Int/Sec analyst, and all of this was happening because he wanted it to. There were plenty of other Upstarts who liked being fucked; Kai had said so. It meant nothing. So why did he feel like he was giving his whole self to Kai?

Maybe because with Kai he could _be_ himself. He didn’t have to hem and haw and fret and pretend to be a born Upstart while also showing deference to people who should have been his peers. With Kai, Bors could be angry. He could admit that he both had and hadn’t enjoyed seeing Aleks Snowblind arrested, because he worshipped the law yet dreamed of being as bold and free and honest as Aleks was. He wanted both things; he wanted _more._

“Here we go, I think,” Kai said, the words ending in another grunt. He moved fluidly on top of Bors, one of his hands grasping Bors’s hand tight and splaying it on the bedspread. “ _Shit_. Verdant hells. You’re so tight.”

And Bors gasped, pushed beyond pain into a realm where all sensations became one, as he felt his friend’s scrotum rest against his stretched, sensitive opening. When Kai began to move again, Bors didn’t stop moaning for a long time.

Afterward, they lay in bed for what felt like hours. Lightheaded and sleepy at once, Bors rested his head on the sunflower on Kai’s chest. He felt the way the Northmen seemed to feel when they retired to the sauna after an afternoon of racing on skis and clambering over their silly obstacle courses. He felt as if Kai had unzipped his skin and taken him apart and reassembled him _better_.

Kai played with Bors’s hair. “Was that your first time, sweetheart?”

Bors blushed, but he wasn’t a liar. “No.”

“Oh? I’m disappointed.” Kai flashed a cocky grin to show he was half joking. “You haven’t had many, though, I wager. I hope the first one was as nice as me.”

After a moment, Bors said, “No.”

The grin melted from Kai’s face. “Seriously? Did he hurt you? Was it one of your superiors, like that limp-dick Karishkov of yours?”

“No, no.” Hearing Kai insult Karishkov always made Bors laugh silently and helplessly, too scared to release the sound even when they were alone. He couldn’t deny that some part of him enjoyed it. “Karishkov prefers women for his recreation, and he wouldn’t—he wouldn’t. No one wants me that way, Kai. I’m not like you.”

“Be thankful for that.” Kai ruffled his hair. “Except clearly someone did want you. Did he at least make you come?”

Bors nodded, relieved to be able to tell the truth. “Twice. He was . . . very good at it. Like you, only not like you. He was just amusing himself with me. You—”

His mind went blank. Kai might not be a traitor like Tilrey, or cruel or hostile, but was he any less strategic when it came to his feelings for Bors? Kai claimed to have cut down his daily dose, but Bors still often tasted sap in his mouth, smelled it on his breath. _That_ was what Kai loved.

Bors didn’t realize his whole body had tensed up until Kai bent and kissed him on the forehead.

“And I,” Kai whispered huskily, lips brushing Bors’s ear, “like you very, very much, Borsha. We don’t use certain other words in the Brothel, but . . . I’m not sure what I’d do without you, honestly.”

_He needs me. I matter._ Bors told himself it wasn’t true, but the elation swelling in him needed a release, and he pulled Kai to him and kissed him so ravenously that they were both breathless when they parted.

“Mmmm.” Kai ran an appreciative hand from Bors’s shoulder blade down to his ass, as if claiming every bit of him. “Second round?”

***

Returning up the corridor to the Brothel’s side exit, Bors was so lost in dreams and remembered sensations that he nearly barreled into a woman coming from the opposite direction. She was older and R-9—a patron.

“Sorry,” he muttered, lowering his eyes.

But the woman stopped, so he had to stop, too. She peered at him, tossing a frazzled white braid over one shoulder. “Fir Dartán? From the ag hearing? I’m surprised you can afford someone on this stretch of corridor.”

Bors recognized her then—Fir’n Evorina Grenfeill, keeper of the Sanctioned Sweetbush and lover of trees. Although she seemed unlikely to run and tattle on him to Karishkov, who’d thwarted her proposal, he flushed so hard his skin itched. “I’m not really here for that, Fir’n Grenfeill. Just, er, seeing an old friend.”

“You have lovely friends, then.” Grenfeill arched a brow. “To be honest, after what I saw at that hearing, you supporting every fool thing Karishkov said, I’m a bit surprised you’re not attached to the man’s dick every free-night.”

_That_ crossed the line. Bors’s head whipped upright, anger driving out embarrassment. “How dare you even . . .” He couldn’t finish the statement. She was his superior.

Grenfeill was laughing, though Bors didn’t get the sense it was at him. “Apologies. I’m glad to see the image revolts you as much as it does me. Niko’s a wretched little stuffed shirt, isn’t he?”

Bors gasped a breath. “Fir Councillor Karishkov is my _superior_ and my _mentor._ I have the greatest respect for him. But when I’m called before the Council, I don’t say what Fir Karishkov tells me to. I say the truth.”

Most high Upstarts found Bors’s occasional outbursts of temper troubling. “You need to control your _emotions_ ,” Gelmedyn liked to lament, as if his anger came somehow from his Drudge genes. But Grenfeill only cocked that brow at him again.

“I’m sure you said the truth as you knew it,” she said. “But you’re a surveillance expert, not a biologist. If you’d listened for a moment to what _I_ was saying, maybe you’d have had the sense to hold your tongue. Thanks to Karishkov’s scare tactics with the committee, my poor trees could be less than a decade away from total extinction.”

Trees! What a bizarre thing to care so much about. “And then what?” Bors asked, her flippancy making him blunt. “No more sap? Is that really such a disaster?”

Grenfeill went solemn. “You do realize sap is one of the foundations of our civilization?”

“Of course, Fir’n Grenfeill.” Bors straightened his tunic, cheeks burning again. What a bumbling fool he was to let her tempt him into frankness. She could afford it; he couldn’t. “I don’t partake myself, that’s all. I can’t help wondering sometimes—what if we all just _refrained_? For a while? Would your precious trees have a chance to heal themselves then?”

Grenfeill was giving him a very curious look. “Now you sound like the Northmen, my lad.”

Green hells, he just kept making things worse. “I don’t—”

“No, no, don’t bother to protest—I’m not accusing you of treason or anything like that. The Northmen have good points; they understand pine husbandry better than most Reddans do. If _they_ ever locate the Sanctioned Sweetbush, perhaps they’ll have the balls to do what we should and won’t.”

“What do you mean?” Thinking of Kai, Bors rather wished he could barge into the Sanctioned Sweetbush and chop down all the muirthorn pines himself.

“Oh, you’re actually curious, are you? Unlike your mentor? Or are you going to run straight to him and tell him I’ve been speaking treason?”

_I should, really._ But Bors knew already, as he shook his head, that his days of running to Karishkov were over. He couldn’t do that without explaining why he’d been here, and that might ruin him and Kai both.

And Grenfeill probably sensed his hesitation. “It’s simple, really,” she said a bit smugly. “The pines need a seven-to-ten-year rest, but the government refuses to rest them. So, if _I_ were a Northman, bent on causing mischief to our government, I would sneak in and inject every one of them with _Rhizoctonia muirthorni_. It’s a pathogen, but mild and not easy to detect. The trees take about a decade to work it out of their systems and rebound, but meanwhile, their carbohydrate reserves—the source of sap—are reduced nearly to zero. Mission accomplished.” She gave him a wink. “If I weren’t such an upright, law-abiding citizen, I might sneak into the grove and inject the trees myself. Shocked yet? Ready to open a file on me?”

“I realize you’re only joking, Fir’n,” Bors said. _Was_ she? Or had she seen something in him—a hint of irreverence or ambivalence—that made her feel safe confiding something unspeakable? “Anyway,” he added hastily, “Whyberg says that ‘Speech alone can never be counted as treason.’”

“The Founder did say that, didn’t he? Though it rather surprises me to hear it quoted by someone whose job involves arresting his fellow citizens for saying careless things in public.” With a last pointed glance, she drew up her skirts and swept past him. “What an interesting conversation we’ve had, Fir Dartán. Good evening.”

_Rhizoctonia muirthorni._ Bors wasn’t sure why, but as he left the Brothel, he committed the species and genus to memory.

***

“Hold still,” Kai coaxed, aiming the camera.

“I will not.” Fuzzy-headed from sleep, Einara yanked the blanket up to her chin. When she encouraged him to learn photography, she hadn’t bargained on this. “I don’t want to be in any pictures. I never did.”

“But you looked so beautiful sleeping just now. The way your lashes were outlined on your cheek. Just a few, for practice?” He drew her into his arms and kissed her forehead. “No one will see them but me, and you can keep the blanket on.”

“How generous of you,” Einara said dryly. Remembering the photos of Tilrey Bronn, she knew reproducible images were points of vulnerability. They might give stream stars and whores a fleeting hold on the public attention, but actual power was invisible.

Still, she needed to keep Kai happy if she wanted him to transfer all his affections from sap to her. Through him, she held Bors Dartán and his priceless knowledge; both of them were allies worthy of long and painstaking cultivation.

And right now, Kai himself might have some knowledge she needed. “Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes, and lay back down on his bed. “Shall I pretend to be asleep again?”

“Just resting is fine. Green hells, no, not like that—you look like you’re posing for a patron. Just be natural.”

_Natural._ Einara never ceased being surprised there was a word for it in the Oslov language, given that their whole civilization was adamantly opposed to nature. She’d lost any naturalness she had long ago, along with her name. In her best approximation, she let herself go limp, a puppet with its strings cut. (Her sister had had puppets. She wondered what on earth Oslov children played with.)

Kai laughed. “Now you look like you’re playing dead in a game of Find the Frozen. Let me pose you.”

Another kiss brushed her cheek. A finger stroked her face and neck, and Einara closed her eyes and leaned into the motion. He _was_ good at what he did. She understood now why Bors was so besotted.

“There’s something I’d like in return,” she murmured.

“That’s good, hold still—there!” A soft click above her. “What do you want?” Kai bent to mouth at her neck, teasing with his tongue. “More of this, maybe?”

“Later.” She arched her back involuntarily. “Right now, I need you to tell me how to use the tunnels under the city to reach an address in the Outer Ring.”

“The Outer Ring? But you don’t go anywhere. Hulda won’t allow it. Turn on your side, and let’s raise your arm—yeah.” Another click.

Einara allowed him to manipulate her, keeping her eyes closed. “That’s why I need to use the tunnels. Less conspicuous.”

“What kind of trouble are you starting now, Einara?” Kai sounded really worried, though he didn’t stop finding the perfect position for her arm.

“That’s my business, love.”

“You don’t have the door chip. If Hulda knows you’re running around outside, she’ll discipline you. And the Outer Ring’s dangerous.”

“I’m no delicate flower, Kai.” Einara put a slight edge on her tone, reminding him who controlled his dose—and his other sources of happiness. “I’ve taken care of the mechanics, obviously. Or are you afraid I’ll run away?”

“I don’t want you to be hurt. That’s the main thing.” He rested his chin on her shoulder. “But if you do run . . . I’ll be alone here.”

Hulda was right; sometimes people did need to be gentled.

“I won’t run.” Einara opened her eyes and reached up to stroke a dark lock off his forehead. “Promise. I have business out there, a connection to make, but my place is here. With you.”

She meant it. The Northmen might be an important ally, but the answers she needed lay at the core of Oslov power—in the Brothel itself, where members of the ruling class revealed their darkest, truest selves. Sometimes she even fancied, as she ran her hands over Kai’s body, that his elaborate tattoos were secret messages and admissions of guilt for dark deeds. If only she could decode them and know _who_ and _why_.

That was just whimsy, but powerful men did reveal themselves to Kai in a way they never had to her. Perhaps they so enjoyed punishing him because they saw him as an extension of themselves—a dud Upstart, but still an Upstart.

She drew him down for a long, wet kiss. “So? If I show you on a paper map of the upper city, will you tell me how to get there?”

Kai grunted softly, clearly loath to let go of her. “Easy enough. My friends and I used to take the tunnels everywhere.”

Then he disentangled himself and picked up the camera again. “But first, let me get you just like that. Your lips, your eyes—oh, yes. You’re glowing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I know nothing about tree husbandry and based this on five minutes of googling. :)
> 
> Three chapters left in this story, I think. Much like Kai and Bors, I am needy and love kudos and comments, but I'm also just happy to have anyone reading this lengthy saga that is basically me playing in my favorite sandbox. So thank you! <3


	12. Mission Accomplished

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read "All the Kinds of Broken," you'll recognize the setting of this chapter from Tilrey's experiences there.
> 
> I'm closing in on the last two chapters of this story and probably will post them this week. Thanks so much for reading! <3

Einara was outside.

Well, not technically outside. Concrete walls and a high concrete ceiling shielded her from the arctic air, and her outdoor boots echoed on bone-white tile. But she was well outside the Brothel, in a place she’d never been before—riding a moving walkway down a seemingly endless tunnel, surrounded by strangers who didn’t look twice at her.

It was exhilarating. Strange. Scary. She had to remind herself to inhale and exhale slowly. She couldn’t call attention to herself by letting her eyes flit around, searching for signs of danger.

The Underground City, as Kai said these tunnels were properly called, stretched all the way under Redda to give pedestrians refuge from the cold. Most of the people in this tunnel wore workers’ coveralls, or loose pants and shapeless parkas like her own—everything monotonously gray, white, or slate blue, since Oslovs were allergic to bright colors.

Starting her journey in Ring One, Einara had seen more Upstarts in tunics or skirts. A little farther out, there were occasional giggling teenagers wearing the uniform of the nearest _kellthavina_ —Strutter progeny. She had no idea which Ring she was in now, but the crowd had thinned dramatically. Everyone looked tired— workers with places to be.

When the moving walkway ended, she found herself navigating a labyrinth of stairways and passages, peering at signs until, with relief, she spotted a cinderblock tunnel marked H7-84. Acting as her guide, Kai had promised this would take her straight to the notorious “Sofa Arcades” on the city’s northeastern rim, so-called because they adjoined a furniture factory. This was where Svesinov met the contact who arranged his regular meetings with the Free Northmen.

The Brothel steward had glowered at Einara as he gave her instructions, the expression only darkening when he touched the back of his hand to the side door to let her out. “Fuck this up, there’ll be hell to pay” had been his snarled parting words. But he knew that one word from her could bring Hulda’s wrath down on his head.

When Einara realized she was alone in the tunnel, which gently curved counterclockwise, she tensed and became more attentive to her surroundings. In the boisterous, bustling capital of Resurgence, a lonely street could be dangerous, particularly for women. While pickpockets worked the crowds, cutthroats and rapists haunted the desolate alleyways.

But Redda, for all its might, was only a midsized city by Harbourer standards. And the eyes of the law were everywhere, watching her from invisibly tiny cameras nestled in every wall and pillar—except, people said, in parts of the Outer Ring.

When Einara asked Kai whether she should take a knife for self-defense, he’d laughed. “Aside from clothes and ID chips, almost nobody in this city has anything to steal, and IDs are a cinch to track. It’s a life sentence for lifting one, with hard labor.”

Still, Einara clutched her messenger bag to her chest, mindful of the pouch and the precious vials inside, as she left the tunnel. From here the route led straight up a seemingly endless series of concrete stairs. Her legs burned, unused to the exercise. Off to her right, a distant, continuous rumble made her a little dizzy, and a whiff of burnt plastic set off alarms in her head. _Burning. What’s burning?_

When she reached the top of the stairs and stopped to catch her breath, she understood. Frigid spring air slapped her face. She’d come out onto a wide, covered catwalk along the side of an enormous building that overlooked a lowland of industrial sheds.

To her right, the building’s vast windows offered views of a busy factory floor. That must be where the rumbling and burning came from. To her left, beyond the steel grating that shielded the catwalk, was the outdoors, glazed with snow and limned in misty radiance from the cloud-covered sun.

So much _space_. The vista and the light made Einara’s heart leap. She imagined herself plunging straight through the grating and taking flight like a bird, soaring up and over the ugly industrial workshops and on, on, straight over the Wastes, until she reached the warm green lands of her birth.

The fantasy faded, leaving her feet still firmly planted on the floor. Were there even birds here? Hulda claimed to have spotted ravens, terns, and gulls in her long lifetime in Redda, but Einara hadn’t seen even a fleeting wing.

She was no bird. And she had work to do.

_The Arcades are on your right,_ Svesinov had said. _Look for a ragwoman’s cart with clothes hanging from it, halfway to the corner of the building._

The “arcades” were a ragtag collection of carts, kiosks, and alcoves that had colonized the catwalk, all of them enlivened with graffiti. Glowing heaters embedded in the ceiling warmed passersby, as did the fragrant steam of a soup-and-tea kiosk.

From one dim nook, Einara caught a glitter of hostile eyes; they were attached to a girl who wore a heavy parka and not much underneath. Einara lowered her own eyes. She didn’t want to be noticed by the seedy men playing cards or the knot of factory workers on an illicit smoke break.

With these fringe dwellers, she had to be wary, yet she was starting to feel more at home. At last, a part of Redda that felt like a functioning city, crime and all.

She had no trouble finding the rag cart; it was hung and heaped with dingy parkas, boots, blankets, babies’ onesies, workers’ coveralls, and more. If she dug through all the drab garments, Einara knew, she would find more precious ones at the bottom, such as Upstart skirts and tunics. Worn-out clothes were supposed to be recycled, but some found their way to places like this. The Arcades were where Hulda and Karina sourced costumes for Brothel photoshoots and streams, and shadier people bought the means to masquerade as Levels not their own.

The tiny, ancient proprietor of the cart wore a crimson silk scarf brazenly turbaned around her forehead. The non-regulation garment had to be from Harbour, and its bright shade wrung Einara’s heart a little.

“Whatcha looking for, sweetheart?” the woman croaked, looking her up and down. “Something pretty to win hearts?”

Einara called all her training into play and said coolly, “Auntie Ravikasha?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know you.”

“I’m looking for a memento that was lost in a coat pocket. A piece of sea glass.”

Auntie Ravikasha registered the code phrase without a blink. “Where’s the sour-faced fellow today?” she asked, digging in one of the pockets of the filthy apron she wore over her coat. “He’s the one I always see—Fir Svesinov.”

“Busy,” Einara said.

Ravikasha’s withered lips pursed as she handed over a scrap of crumpled, oily paper. “You’re a pretty one. I’m surprised they let you out.”

Einara took the note. “Thank you. I hope we shall be seeing each other again soon.”

Then, without another word of leave-taking, she turned on her heel and strode on along the Arcades to the corner of the building.

There she paused to give her heart rate a chance to level off. What a fool, getting nervous over a simple hand-off. Colonel Thibault’s trainers had taught her better, but nearly eight years in the cloistered dimness of the Brothel had turned her into a frightened mole when she finally emerged above ground.

She leaned on the grating, appearing to contemplate the view, while she read the scrap of paper: _Door at corner. Metal stairs down. Catwalk 100m to Greenhouse. Ask for Szaralund._

Svesinov had said he met his Northman contact in a different place every ten-day, though not whether that contact was always the same. This one had a florid Feudal name, perhaps a whore’s nom de guerre. Or did the Northmen embrace Feudalism? Relying on instinct to keep her cautious, Einara found the door.

Sure enough, clanging metal stairs took her down three levels, where she found a narrow catwalk that veered off across the industrial plain she’d seen from above. Now just a flight above the ground, she counted off her paces as she walked, pulling her parka tight against the icy breeze.

Out of the towering factory’s shadow, the pearly sunlight was almost blinding, reflected and magnified by acres of snowy yard. No one else was around to soak up the life-giving radiance—not a soul within her sight. Emptiness made the scene unreal, and it was a relief to reach another stairway, this one leading to the ground. At the bottom, a dirt track took Einara across the yard to a low, fiberglass-walled shed.

This had to be the “greenhouse,” but it was no ordinary Oslov specimen. The greenhouses she’d seen in the Wastes were always meticulously maintained. Here, bleary, mold-stained panels offered views of a chaotic jungle of growth, as if the keepers had stepped aside and let the plants run riot.

The outer door was balky. When Einara got it open, humidity blasted her, bringing an overpowering scent of vegetal rot and a bizarre, contrasting whiff of sandalwood incense. That triggered a flood of nostalgia, just like the scarf—Colonel Thibault’s palace reeked of incense. Who burned it in Oslov?

As if in answer, the inner door inched open to reveal a very young woman with cropped auburn hair and an upturned nose. Under her parka, she wore leggings with bare feet, and over her shoulder hung something Einara hadn’t seen since she lived in the garrison on the Wastes—a military-issue rifle. It was pointed at her.

She took a swift step backward, raising her hands. “Ravikasha sent me. I’m here for Szaralund.”

“You’re not the one they usually send.” Despite being armed, the girl sounded downright relaxed. She had the dead eyes of a sweet-drowned person with a hefty dose in her, a look Einara knew well from Kai’s bad days. She lowered the rifle. “Gotta search you.”

Einara handed over the knife she’d stowed in her boot (despite Kai’s reassurances) and allowed the girl to pat her down. “Can’t be too careful.”

“Nope,” the girl said, looking sidelong at Einara. “You look pricey,” she added as if it were a private joke between them. “All the way in the back. Don’t bother the girls; they’re resting up for tonight.”

“Of course not.” _What or whom am I looking for?_ But Einara couldn’t ask now—and so, cursing herself for not asking Svesinov more specific questions, she nodded to the girl and set off down the long aisle of the greenhouse.

The place must have been allowed to fall into disrepair by the Bureau of Food, then reclaimed and repurposed by the criminal element. The plants were still there, growing as they willed, but they weren’t alone. On either side of the aisle, curtains and blankets partitioned the plant beds into shallow cubicles. Many of the partitions were bright, gauzy, spangled fabrics from Harbour, and most were only half-closed. Einara caught flickers of movement within, along with glimpses of brown-tipped palm fronds and obscenely scarlet flowers.

Not all of the occupants were resting. One curtain half opened to reveal a woman who gave Einara a curious stare. She was naked except for lacy Harbourer underclothes and tattooed all over, far more than Kai, with images of lush leaves and flowers. Einara wondered if this Oslov even knew plants like that really grew somewhere.

“Not here for us, eh?” the woman said in a strong Karkei accent.

Her neighbor peeked out, too, and cackled. She wore a bodysuit of what appeared to be clear plastic wrap and a crown of poppies on her head. “Are you scared of us, sweetie? Because we live in the dirt? You look so clean.”

_Don’t bother the girls._ Einara lowered her gaze and kept walking, pretending she didn’t hear the raucous laughter. This must be one of the shadow-market, _un_ sanctioned brothels to which Hulda was always contrasting her own. Who were the patrons here? Factory workers? Engineers? Upstarts eager to roll around in the dirt? Whichever it was, Einara hoped the women—they seemed to be all women, another sharp contrast to the Brothel—had chosen this life and not been forced into it.

The end of the aisle was closed off by another curtain. It opened as Einara reached it, rattling on bamboo rings, to reveal a skinny woman sitting in a folding chair beside a filing cabinet, a second curtain behind her.

It was so different from the other cubicles, so almost sterile, that Einara stopped short. This woman wore a scraggly fur coat that hung to her feet, open to expose shorts and a camisole. Long red hair— _so_ red it was surely dyed—flowed down her back like a waterfall.

Neither the fur coat nor the untamed hair would have been anything odd in Resurgence, but here Einara had to work not to stare. Hulda had told her once that she kept a few furs in the Brothel’s wardrobe to indulge patrons who had a fetish for the stuff, but those were fake. This one was real.

“Szaralund?” Einara swallowed to keep her mouth from going dry. “Hulda sent me with the pouch. Svesinov was indisposed.”

Szaralund didn’t seem troubled. “Let’s see it,” she said, patting her bare knee.

Was this a Free Northwoman, at last? Aside from her get-up, she seemed so ordinary. Her nasal voice had a touch of Thurskein.

Moving on autopilot, Einara pulled the pouch from her messenger bag and handed it over. “Forty-eight, all full.”

Szaralund bent her head and counted the vials in an undertone, as swiftly as Hulda would have. “Forty-six, forty-eight, all good.” She raised her eyes again and said matter-of-factly, “We’ve got some apples today, and rhubarb, and some very nice frozen lamb chops. Does your cook know how to prep those?”

Lamb was only supposed to be served to Strutters at the Restaurant, but Hulda was fond of it. Einara had memorized Svesinov’s “shopping list” so she wouldn’t falter or hesitate. “One kilo of the chops, please,” she recited, “and three dozen apples, and a jug of maple syrup, and some basil if you have it . . .”

When she got to the coffee, though—another Harbourer delicacy that Hulda prized—Szaralund shook her head. “Our supplier didn’t come through this month. That stuff comes from down near the equator. There are bandit attacks.”

Einara was all too aware. Colonel Thibault was famous in Resurgence for insisting that she be served her preferred blend of coffee daily, no matter how many people had to die to get it.

“Fine,” she said, trying to remember what you did with rhubarb. But her brain was too caught up in planning her next move. She couldn’t just lay things out on the table, making the same mistakes she’d made with Irin Dartán, but so far Szaralund wasn’t giving her any openings. She was acting like an ordinary smuggler.

“What else do you have?” Einara asked.

“Tons of dry goods.” Szaralund opened the filing cabinet and passed a folded garment to Einara. “Bet you’d look nice in this, or someone else on your staff would . . .”

Einara’s breath caught. The dress was made of hot-pink silk, the bodice sewn with hundreds of tiny seed pearls and the skirt puffed out with gauze. Colonel Thibault had dresses this lovely, though hers were custom made. When she was very young, Einara had dreamed of whirling around a ballroom wearing something like this, held tight in the arms of a handsome prince.

She handed it back. “We don’t have any use for frippery. How about . . . a fur like yours?”

Szaralund laughed, showing two rotten teeth. “Even if we sold real fur, you could get in serious trouble for having one. Anyway, this is no import. It’s arctic fox from right here in Oslov.”

_They teach themselves to hunt on the Wastes, to slaughter, and to use all parts of the animal for food and warmth. It’s part of their authenticity obsession_ , Bors had said about the Northmen. Perhaps the coat was Szaralund’s way of showing her allegiance.

Einara looked the woman in the eye. She was poised on a precipice, she knew, but this might be her only chance.

“What I desire,” she said, “isn’t any of the goods you stock here. I want you to bear a message from me to Aleks Thulver, also called Aleks Snowblind. I seek a private conference with him, and it will be worth his while.”

So far, Szaralund hadn’t seemed fazed by anything; perhaps, like Einara, she was trained in masking her emotions. But now she laughed out loud. “Even if I knew such a person, why on earth would he come to Redda just to talk to a towheaded government Brothel whore?”

Pride straightened Einara’s spine. After so many years in a luxurious cage, so much work just to get to this point, she would _not_ be thwarted. At her full height, she was taller than Szaralund, and she glared down and poured all the force of her training into her words:

“Ask him if he’s ever heard the legend of the Verses. I believe they know it in Harbour. The rest—that’s for me to tell Aleks when I’m ready. For now, _you_ tell him that _I_ have the means to do what he only dreams of—bring this city to its knees. Will that do?” she added sweetly.

Szaralund’s face had gone pale. “I’ll do what I can,” she said at last. “Would you like to give me a note for him?”

Einara shook her head, misgiving slithering in her belly. Perhaps she’d gone too far too fast, after all. “Just tell him. Use those words—the Verses.”

The woman nodded, her dark eyes unreadable. “I’ll just fetch your goods, then.”

As she disappeared behind the curtain, presumably into a storeroom, sudden weakness made Einara totter and steady herself on the filing cabinet. Release of tension, she told herself. She was still only at the beginning, but she had taken the first step away from Hulda. The rest would be easier.

She was resting in Szaralund’s chair, limp with exhaustion, when the curtain opened again. This time, Hulda stepped out.

Einara leapt to her feet, but her legs refused to take her anywhere. All she could do was stand upright. Somewhere in the distance, she heard her heart stubbornly thunking against her ribs, keeping her alive.

The Brothel director chuckled affectionately and came to wrap an arm around Einara’s waist, holding her as she swayed. Behind her, Svesinov emerged from the curtain and stood with hands clasped attentively behind him, a curl to his lip.

“Sweetheart,” Hulda said, “you didn’t really think it was so easy to disobey me, did you? I may have given you some freedom, but you’re very much still mine.”


	13. Her Mark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter features branding and other violence.

Einara felt faint. They’d left the greenhouse brothel far behind, but she could swear she still smelled the overripe mingling of flowers, incense, and decay.

Hulda handed her a thermos. “Have some tea, dear. You don’t look well at all.”

Einara knew the tea might contain sap or something stronger, but she had no energy to refuse. The warm liquid steadied her a fraction, and she tried to focus on the skyscrapers floating past outside the window of the mag-van. They were in the cluttered delivery vehicle that Svesinov used to fetch large supply shipments.

She felt intense gratitude that they hadn’t had to return the long way, by tram or on foot, because she wasn’t sure she could have walked more than a few steps with Hulda’s possessive hand on her arm. The possibilities for clawing the director’s eyes out, escaping, and throwing herself off a building would have proved too tempting.

Hulda knew that, of course. The woman was considerate, in her way.

“Topaz,” Einara said as they approached Ring One, the surrounding buildings growing older and more ornate. It was the first word she’d spoken since the greenhouse. “Svesinov must have told you about their deal. Will you punish him?”

The old woman shook her head. She seemed neither angry nor smug at having caught Einara, only as calm as if she were relaxing with her knitting after a long day.

“Svesinov’s a sentimental fool,” she said, not bothering to lower her voice so that the steward, who was driving, wouldn’t hear. “But, since he did the right thing and came clean to me, neither will be punished. Topaz and I will work out a visitation schedule for his poor bastard child.” After a moment, she added, “In case you’re wondering, you won’t be punished, either.”

Dread began to worm its way through the thick blanket of Einara’s stupor. “I know you,” she said.

“And I know you.” Hulda reached out, absent-mindedly, and tidied a strand of hair that had escaped from Einara’s braid. “Ever since you asked me about the Northmen, I’ve been waiting for you to do something like this. I only thought you might be smarter and subtler about it.”

Recognizing the words as provocation, Einara bit down on her angry reply. “We have a difference of opinion, Fir’n,” she said evenly. “You think these Northmen are useless troublemakers. I disagree.”

“My dear, I don’t think there’s much we do agree on, including our ultimate goals.” Hulda gave the braid a jerk that made Einara wince. “But I’ve always known what you are—a feral animal that fouls and destroys any cage you give it. I only hoped I could tame you into something useful.”

Einara swallowed hard. They seemed to be taking the route back to the Brothel, but it was well within Hulda’s powers to have Svesinov slit her throat and dump her body in the Wastes. Perhaps they would torture her for the Verses first. Hulda claimed not to want the codes that supposedly unlocked Redda’s infrastructure, but who would leave such a weapon on the table?

The realization turned Einara ice cold, her fingertips going numb. Still, she managed not to tremble as she raised her eyes to the Director’s and said, “And now?”

Hulda looked back at her. “Are you hoping I’ll give up on you? Offer you the punishment you actually deserve for what you did” — and now she did lower her voice— “to my nephew?”

_You failed to tame me._ “I’m not afraid,” Einara said, controlling her voice with effort.

Hulda patted the younger woman’s hand, her face relaxing into a fond smile. “My dear, is that really true?”

The woman had her number. Einara knew she was still the coward who had murdered Irin Dartán rather than risk the possibility of her own exposure and execution. She still wanted to live—for her plans, for her vengeance. She wanted to come face to face with Tilrey Bronn and best him at his own game.

And, if she plumbed deep into her heart, she had to admit she also wanted to live for soft, foolish reasons—for instance, to keep having teatime with Kai and Bors, two Oslovs whom she’d managed not to despise. To listen to them bicker while the snow flew outside. To feel Kai’s embrace and pretend she was a normal girl who could find comfort in a pair of strong arms. Even Hulda’s company hadn’t been unpleasant, most of the time. Einara had a life at the Brothel, full of routines that were relaxingly the same year after year. She wanted to live that life. She wanted another ten years, another year, another month, another ten-day, another day, another hour.

Did Hulda know that? Did she want her to beg? Einara set her jaw the way Colonel Thibault had trained her to do. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Hulda’s sticklike fingers caressed Einara’s hand. “You may not be tamed, little fierce one, but I think you can be trained. Believe me, if I were going to harm you, I would have done it a long time ago.”

***

Councillor Lindblom knew what she was doing with a strap-on, and she had stamina that few men could match. The Painted Boy was down on all fours on the carpet, where he couldn’t see the bedside clock, but he suspected they’d been going for twenty minutes or so. Despite her careful lubrication, the dildo she was using on him was huge, and each thrust was starting to burn.

When she reached for his cock, the Painted Boy flinched away. He was already achingly hard, and her teasing was infernal. The clamps she’d fastened to his nipples swung with each thrust, sending shivers of itching sensation down his spine. “Can’t hold out much longer, Fir’n.”

Davita Lindblom gave him a smart smack on the flank, right on top of the light welts she’d laid there earlier. “What have I told you about whining?”

The Painted Boy winced, but the pain was still on the verge of pleasure. “I’m not! I just—can’t.” He raised his hips to take her thrusts deeper, tears pricking his eyes. Being fucked by a blunt, insensitive object always made him feel like an object himself—made for patrons’ pleasure—and it always made him come harder. He didn’t particularly want to think about why.

“You’re a dreadful whiner. You know that.” Davita seized hold of his cock and gave it a caress, followed by a slap that made the Painted Boy gasp. She tweaked the clamp attached to one sensitive nipple, and he moaned. “You’re still that spoiled little schoolboy, sweetheart, relying on a pretty face to get you out of anything uncomfortable.”

The Painted Boy barely suppressed a sob. “I am not.”

“I’m not insulting you. It’s part of your charm.”

He knew better than to argue, so he braced himself on his strong arms and offered his ass to the thrusts and let the tears flow down his cheeks. Inside him, though, a voice continued to insist with more and more confidence: _That’s not you anymore. You’re thirty-two years old. You can get by on a vial a day now, maybe less. You have two friends who’ve seen you at your worst and still don’t hate you. You’re learning a trade. You could be a real person._

The voice was Einara’s voice, and he imagined she was the one who was perched on his back ferociously fucking him, even as she whispered in his ear. Einara could ride him even harder than Lindblom, of that he was sure. She would be ruthless, too, but he would love every second. Einara would tear him down exactly as much as he needed to be torn down, then build him up again. She knew who he was, both his weakness and his strength.

When the Councillor finally let him come, the intensity of the spasm swept all thoughts away. The Painted Boy was dimly conscious of his seed spilling on the carpet, and he had a fleeting memory of the time Hulda had punished him by making him spend a day on the clean-up crew that dealt with such things. Then Davita slid the wooden phallus out of him, inch by agonizing inch, and he returned to his body, groaning in mingled ecstasy and humiliation.

The Councillor helped him up onto the bed and stretched him out on the enormous simulated polar bear pelt. While he rested from his labors, she put on one of her florid Harbourer robes and fetched the tea cart she’d ordered from outside. She liked to fuss over him and feed him, raising a tumbler to his lips and then a cookie, as if he were an invalid.

“You love this, don’t you?” she said, tousling his hair as he chewed. “You must have been such a mama’s boy.”

The Painted Boy didn’t want to discuss his mother, who was a proud Upstart. He curled up on Davita’s bosom, nuzzling the silk of her robe. She hadn’t removed the clamps, and the contact irritated his aching nipples in a way that was almost arousing again. “What can I say, Fir’n? Women have always wanted to take care of me.”

“Because you’re always the prettiest boy in the room.” She stroked his earlobe. “And you know it, vain creature.”

The Painted Boy had an idea. “Am I the best-looking you’ve ever had?” he asked.

Davita laughed—a low chuckle that stirred his cock again. “You’re in the top five. Beyond that, I don’t play favorites.”

“Yes, you do. I _know_ you do. A connoisseur like you?” He tugged himself from her grip and put a fatuous pout on his face. “Who’ve you ever had who’s hotter than me, Fir’n? Is it that stuck-up kettle boy, the one who lives with Fir Gádden? Tilrey Bronn?”

The amusement vanished abruptly from Davita’s expression. “Who told you about him?”

“Everybody knows who he is. He lived with two General Magistrates from two opposite parties.” When Bors said Tilrey Bronn spent regular nights with Lindblom, the Painted Boy hadn’t thought much of it. Just one more bit of data from Bors’s near-stalking pursuit of Tilrey. But the Councillor’s sudden seriousness made him think this was a connection worth exploring.

He kept his tone light, unthreatening. “Bronn’s a Skeinsha, and yet they let him sit in the Council chamber and speak as a proxy for Fir Councillor Gádden, almost like he _was_ the Councillor. It’s because they’re all in love with him, or because he’s got dirt on all of them, right? Nobody knows which.”

Davita took a businesslike sip of tea. “You shouldn’t spread gossip.”

“What else can I do? _I_ don’t get to sit in the Council chamber. I’m just a poor whore, spending my days waiting for you Fira to come pay attention to me.” The Painted Boy put on his pout again. “You’ve had Bronn, haven’t you? I can tell. You think he’s special, just like they all do. What makes him more special than me?”

His petulance seemed to set the Councillor at ease; she flicked his bangs out of his eyes. “It’s not a contest, darling, and jealousy doesn’t become you. But if you must know, he’s also in my top five.”

_Bors was right._ The Painted Boy kept the peeved expression on his face, playing the vapid creature she wanted him to be. “So, what’s the deal? He’s no younger than me. Does he have a magic cock? Magic hands? Magic mouth?”

Davita’s face had gone dreamy. “Some of each. In bed, he’s rather like you—I do have a type. Delightfully submissive. Suffers beautifully.” She leaned in and gave the Painted Boy a maternal kiss. “But you shouldn’t compare yourself to someone who’s completely _un_ like you in every other way. From what I gather, books and studying aren’t your forte, and politics even less.”

So she knew Bronn had political ambitions. Was she helping him fulfill them? The Painted Boy filed away the remark to tell Bors and Einara. If he was careful, he might be able to coax Davita, session by session, into telling him more. She seemed to enjoy his “jealousy.”

“So he’s _bookish_ ,” he said derisively. “That sounds like an incredible turn-on. What does he do, read to you in bed?”

“Sometimes. You’re such a lout, you know that? You would have made a terrible Upstart.” And, with a happy laugh, the Councillor pulled him down on his back and gave him a long, leisurely kiss, her hand reaching for his cock. “I think it’s time _I_ got fucked now, darling.”

***

Kai was still smiling, just a little, when he returned to his room from the showers. He was too sore to have a spring in his step, but the endorphins from two orgasms made his body pleasantly light, and now he had something to tell Einara when he saw her later this evening.

He lay down for a nap, hoping to get some rest before then, but before he could close his eyes, the door burst open. Svant and Svesinov stood tall in the doorway, both of them grim-faced. Svant carried something—a tool box?

“Get up,” the Brothel steward barked. “Spot inspection.”

“Okay, okay.” Kai despised the man, but obedience was a reflex at this point. He hauled himself up— _ouch_ —and stood with his back to the door and his hands against the wall, legs spread.

Svesinov frisked Kai in a businesslike way, tugging his flimsy sleepwear aside when necessary. Behind them, Svant was moving around—searching the room, Kai supposed. He would probably find the cache of vials in the hole in the mattress, but Kai couldn’t bring himself to worry. Anything they confiscated, Einara would return to him with interest. She took care of him.

“Here we go,” Svant said, sounding almost unhappy. “Six and a third.”

“Let me see.” Svesinov went to examine the tattooist’s find.

Kai stayed where he was, knowing it was better to look cooperative. Every month or so, Hulda complained to Svesinov about the staff hoarding their tips, and the steward made a show of enforcing the rules. At worst, Kai might be put on cleaning duty for a day or so, but Einara could probably get him out of that, too.

When two pairs of hands seized him from behind, yanking him away from the wall, he was so surprised he fought back. Both men were on him, trying to pin his arms. Kai landed a kick on Svesinov’s shin that sent the steward staggering backward, then flailed himself free of Svant. “What the _fuck_?” He’d been _cooperating._

But Svesinov was back and angry, and Kai couldn’t control his instinct for self-defense. He landed a wild punch on the steward’s jaw and went on struggling until together they got him on the floor.

Svant sat on him, clamping his wrists together. “Just lie still,” he muttered, his hot breath on Kai’s face. But Kai needed to see what the steward was up to. He twisted desperately and saw Svesinov fetching something from a corner—a smock covered with nylon straps.

A straitjacket. A fucking straitjacket like they used on addicts in moral rehab so they wouldn’t bother anyone with the spasms of their withdrawal. Kai had seen it in a dramastream: a sweet-drowned man lying trussed in a tiny cell, flailing and crying out for mercy, unheard. The stream was a cautionary tale of sap abuse, but for him it only sent the message to stay the fuck out of moral rehab.

He went limp all at once, panting, knowing his resistance had been a stupid mistake. “What’re you doing? I’m not—I’m not like that. Ask Einara. I’ve cut down my dose. I’ve been good. Ask her!”

Ignoring his pleas, the two men sat him up and forced his arms into the elongated sleeves, then buckled them firmly against his chest. The device was so confining that struggle was useless, but _not_ struggling set Kai’s teeth on edge. Maybe Svesinov was taking revenge for the kick and the punch, being extra harsh on him. But why had they brought the contraption in the first place?

“Get Einara,” he insisted, trying to keep his voice steady. “This is all a mistake—she’ll tell you. She gave me those vials on Hulda’s orders. She knows!”

The steward took his time buckling the last strap, at the small of Kai’s back, which cinched the whole jacket punishingly tight. Then he swung Kai around to face the open door.

Einara stood there, looking down at him with an expression of mild interest. She wore all white, her usual braid pinned high like a crown. Her eyes were the blue of the frozen ocean.

“They’re here on my orders, Kai,” she said. “You’ve proved yourself unworthy of managing a sap allowance, so we’re going to clean out your system and see if that makes you easier to handle.”

“I—what? But you—” Then Kai was struggling again, wildly and hopelessly. He tried to stand up, to go to her, as if it would matter.

Svesinov shoved him back down on his knees, hard. “You’re making it worse for yourself, Strutter.”

They still hated him for the accident of his birth. All of them. He should have known that, _had_ known it on some level, but he’d thought Einara had different feelings. Liked him. Needed him. Was amused by him. Something. What was she _doing_?

“I’m down to a V a day,” he protested, still straining toward her. “You know that. I shouldn’t have kept the vials I didn’t drink—that was wrong of me. I could’ve hurt myself. But I just had to have them close.”

She looked at him. “We’ve all heard your excuses, Kai.”

Kai’s voice broke. “I’m getting better, I swear! I might even be fine if you cut me off.” It was hard to admit that, because he didn’t _want_ to be cut off, not yet. But verdant hells, he needed out of the straitjacket, and he didn’t like the foreboding look on Svant’s face.

The steward laughed. “Likely story. Svant, hop to it.”

Svant looked unhappier than ever. “Have to?”

“You heard our orders.”

Svant glanced from the steward to Einara, who gazed impassively back. Then he went over to the corner where he’d abandoned the tool box. From it he took a pen-sized rod and what looked like a blowtorch.

_Shit._ With a desperate effort, Kai broke free of Svesinov and staggered to his feet. He tried to lunge toward Einara, with no particular plan in mind—fall into her arms? Go to his knees and beg? But the steward’s strong arms slammed him back against the wall and pinned him there.

Over Svesinov’s shoulder, Kai saw Svant light the blowtorch and hold something in the flame—the rod. He hadn’t believed the rumors that recalcitrant staff members sometimes got punishments much worse than cleaning duty. But now a deep-down shudder wracked him, his body already feeling what his mind refused to envision.

He writhed in Svesinov’s arms and barely felt the bite of the straps. A visceral fear dizzied him, making his stomach turn over and his heart batter his ribs. “’Nara! You can’t do this!”

Einara stepped into the center of the room. “Fir’n Director asks only that you become a useful tool for her purposes,” she said in the coldest, deadest voice Kai had ever heard from her. “She left the means up to me. In Feudal times, some lords branded their slaves with their initials or crest. In Harbour, it’s commonly done to livestock. A few Outers undergo it voluntarily as a form of body adornment, similar to your tattoos. They see it as a way to prove their imperviousness to pain.”

Kai didn’t need to hear any more. He kicked out, trying to knock Svesinov down. But the man dodged this time and gave him a cuff on the side of the head that stunned him, sending him reeling against the wall.

By the time he had his bearings again, Svant was closing on him, both men boxing him in. The tattooist had the rod in his hand, and Kai saw it was tipped with a medallion about the size of his fingernail, glowing red hot.

It was carved with a single raised letter _E_.

He didn’t understand, and then all at once he did. _Her_ initial. _Her_ mark. She was going to mark him.

_She_ was the one who wanted a useful tool.

He sagged against the wall, knees buckling. Svesinov grabbed him in a fierce embrace and held him still for the advancing Svant. “Where?” he asked Einara.

Einara stepped closer, examining Kai clinically. He could feel the heat of the branding iron, smell it in the air like fresh blood, and it made tears spring to his eyes. Still he forced himself to look straight at her, because he needed to understand. To know _why_.

Her eyes didn’t relent. “Here,” she said, reaching between the two men to touch a spot at the base of Kai’s neck, between collarbone and right shoulder.

“You’ll regret this.” The words came out in a snarl, a voice not his own. “You think _this_ will make me useful? Cooperative? Not in ten fucking lifetimes.”

Nothing made sense. He was already useful. They had a mutually beneficial partnership; he was even keeping a secret for her. Unless she’d only told him that “secret” to test him; unless everything she’d said and done was on Hulda’s orders.

And he was the dumb sap who’d believed her. _Stupid, stupid boy. Unworthy, underachieving fuck-up._

“As you can see, the brand isn’t large,” Einara said in the terrible dead voice. “The pain will be brief, the damage limited, because we don’t wish to lower your value. Some of your patrons may not notice the mark at all.”

_Not fucking likely._ But Kai was awash in the adrenaline of rage. His vision blurred; the mad pounding of his blood lifted him so high above himself that he dared hoped he wouldn’t feel the branding at all. “Just do it, then,” he said, and spat in her face. “I should never have trusted a fucking barbarian.”

Einara wiped saliva from her cheek. “The Free Northmen also brand themselves, I’ve heard.” Her face stayed cool, but her voice wobbled a fraction. “Surely you can at least be as strong as they are.”

The Free Northmen. What the fuck did they have to do with _this_? Freshly outraged, Kai didn’t take his eyes from her, and he caught the instant when the deadness fell from her face like a mask.

Her mouth twisted. Her eyes glazed with horror, as if she could feel the branding iron herself.

Nothing mattered but that face, that transformation. Kai was only faintly conscious now of Svesinov’s arms holding him fast, of the hot breath on his hair, or of Svant leaning in and saying something about minimizing the pain. They were distant landmarks on the borders of a world that had narrowed to Einara.

Her face was all indifference again, but he was sure of what he’d seen. She was playing a part, and she had faltered on purpose. By mentioning the Northmen, she had deliberately reminded him of the secrets she kept from Hulda, the mad plans she’d told only to him.

This wasn’t her idea. She was as much a prisoner and pawn as he was. And the best thing he could do for her, for both of them, was to play along.

When the red-hot iron met his skin, Kai felt nothing at first. Only after he screamed did the pain come rushing in. It was a white-hot wave that drowned everything but the most immediate sensations: the sizzle and the sweet stench of burnt flesh; the rawness of his throat.

The world lurched; time slowed to a crawl and then abruptly leapt forward. The brand was no longer touching his skin, yet the white walls of the room pulsed like burning embers: _pain, pain, pain_. His legs had gone to rubber, and he felt abjectly grateful for Svesinov’s strong arms holding him upright.

Next thing he knew, he was huddled up on the floor, and something was trying to tear itself out of his throat. Choking? No, he was sobbing, or maybe retching. Whatever it was, his body was doing it without his cooperation, and the sickening smell of his own charred flesh hung in the air.

Kai rocked in place as voices spoke above him, a jumble of meaningless syllables. Somehow his eyes found Einara, so calm and cool and perfect, and he yearned to go and let her comfort him, but not yet, maybe not ever. So, as she looked back, he sent a message with his eyes: _I know._


	14. Power of Three

They had strapped Kai to an infirmary bed again, and he was fighting. Einara watched as he thrashed and moaned, calling out wildly: “Just a little! A dip! I need it! You can’t leave me like this—I learned my lesson, I promise. I’m dying!”

Standing just beyond the doorway, she saw him without being seen. The wails and pleas sent shivers down her spine, making it hard to keep her neutral expression. Yet she detected something a little off about these supposed throes of withdrawal—something a little theatrical.

Kai wasn’t that dependent on sap anymore, and they both knew it, but Hulda didn’t. This performance—lord of light, she _hoped_ it was a performance—was for the director’s benefit.

“How often is he like this?” she asked the medic.

If the woman saw anything fishy about Kai’s hysterics, she didn’t show it. “I’d say a half-hour out of every two. Mostly he just sleeps, but then he wakes up and starts acting out again.”

“And his vitals are good?”

“As good as can be expected,” the medic said stonily. When Kai arrived, she had given him a topical painkiller while pointedly voicing no opinions about the letter _E_ branded into his shoulder; she was used to keeping her mouth shut. “He’s a strong lad; he’ll get through it.”

“Yes, he will.”

As Einara turned to go—each movement stiff and deliberate—Kai began sobbing hoarsely, as if he’d run out of words. Something soft and traitorous inside her wanted to run to him and fold him in her arms. _I’m so sorry. I’m here, love._

But she was not and could never be that woman.

“When he calms down, you’ll untie him, won’t you?” she said.

The medic looked surprised to see Einara show any concern. “Yes. And when we’re sure he won’t hurt himself or anyone else, we’ll bring him back to his room to ride out the rest of it. Things usually improve after the second or third day.”

“You’ll let me know when you move him? When he can have visitors?”

The woman’s face softened just a little. “Of course.”

Einara didn’t relax her own stern expression till she was back in her room. She couldn’t trust the medic not to report on her to Hulda.

“As I’ve said many times, sometimes people need to be gentled,” the director had told Einara in the van as they rode back to the Brothel, “and sometimes they need to be disciplined. With Kai, you’ve been too gentle. It’s time to remind him who’s in charge, just as I’ve done in _our_ relationship. It’s a nice symmetry, isn’t it?”

She’d ordered Einara to hurt him. “I leave the means up to you,” Hulda said, her eyes twinkling as if she were doing Einara a favor, “but not the result. When this is done, I want Kai Meirthal to hate you. Anything less, and I’ll conclude that your allegiance is to him and not to me.”

“You think I’m plotting with him?” Einara asked. She didn’t have to fake her innocent surprise. Though she had enlisted Kai as her ally against the director, she hadn’t yet taken him into her confidence in any meaningful way, and she couldn’t see him choosing Hulda over her. “He doesn’t know anything about . . . where I come from.”

Hulda’s smile was contemptuous. “No, you’re not stupid enough to tell him. And I’m not worried about the poor little sap-drowned boy being besotted with you. In fact, I’m all for it. It makes him easier to manage. But you seem to be fond of him, and right now _you_ need to be reminded of your place.”

“So he’s a whipping boy?” Einara couldn’t help arguing, though she knew it was futile. Once Hulda wanted to do something, she did it. “If Kai hates me, he’ll stop cooperating. He’ll sabotage everything we’re trying to do with Bors.”

The director patted her hand. “Don’t underestimate yourself. You broke Kai and tamed him and gentled him once already, and now he’s eating out of your hand. This is simply the second phase of his training. If you know your business, he’ll end up more in love with you than ever. And if you fail—” She shrugged. “We can sacrifice the Bors business, I suppose. The important thing is that _you_ prove yourself to me.”

Einara understood. This was her punishment for going to the Northmen. But she hardened her expression and said, “What makes you think it hurts me to hurt Kai?”

Hulda laughed softly and kissed her on the cheek. “I have eyes.”

So Einara hurt Kai. She chose a method that left absolutely no doubt of her intention to hurt him. And she stood by and watched with a face of stone, only once giving him a brief glimpse of the humanity underneath.

She had long practice in turning off her feelings. She’d seen people branded and worse. Still, when it was over and he was safe in the infirmary, her head spun, and she had to steady herself on a wall. She spent the rest of the night wracked with shudders and chills, the whole scene replaying itself in her head until she found a vial and sapped herself into brief, sick oblivion.

The performance in the infirmary gave her hope that Kai had understood her silent message to him. Regardless of the severity of his withdrawal, he knew he had to suffer publicly and impressively, or Hulda would never trust the two of them together again.

He hadn’t faked his reaction to the branding, though. Einara could still hear the screams and that hideous sobbing. Even if he understood the role she’d been playing, how could he forgive her?

She did not cry—she wasn’t sure how anymore. But she curled up in bed and covered her face and lay still for a very long time.

***

Three days later, she braced herself and knocked on Kai’s door. The medic had pronounced him stable in withdrawal, and the infirmary had released him a few hours ago.

A long silence. Then: “Come in if you’re coming.”

He sat on his bed with his back to the wall and his knees hugged to his chest, his chestnut hair matted and unwashed. The short-sleeved shirt exposed a lurid hand-shaped bruise on his biceps from the struggle with Svesinov.

It covered the brand, though. Einara was grateful for that.

“Figured you’d show up soon enough.” His voice was hoarse, tired.

Einara had nothing to say to that. She hesitated in the center of the tiny room, but Kai indicated the bed. “Might as well sit. Just another day in the Sanctioned Hellhole.”

Again Einara had that dangerous impulse to take him in her arms, but if she did, he would thrust her away. She sat down gingerly on the end of the bed. “Mietta tells me you’re better.”

“Oh, I’m peachy.” But the hostile sarcasm that she remembered from their early conversations faded quickly from Kai’s face. He crawled across the bed to lean in toward her. “Is Hulda listening to us?”

Einara shook her head. “She thinks it’ll be more fun to make me give her a detailed blow-by-blow of our conversation later.”

Kai exhaled, close enough that she could smell the antiseptic infirmary odor that clung to him. “She caught you. Outside.”

She nodded.

“I warned you.”

Einara braced herself for the litany of reproaches she so richly deserved. Instead, Kai’s face fell apart. His mouth twisted, his eyes shining with tears. And then, before she knew what was happening, his arms were around her, drawing her in.

“Oh verdant hells, you little barbarian fool.” He pressed her against his chest, where she could feel the thud of his heart and the quiver of his whole body. “You can’t leave me, don’t you understand that? You can’t leave me all alone here. You’re all I . . .”

Then he was kissing her, wild and rough and hungry, his tongue in her mouth. It felt strange and probably wrong but also good, and she kissed back, tasting sourness in his mouth and not caring.

When they came apart, she said, “I didn’t expect that.”

“I’m mad, aren’t I? But I’ve been lying in bed for days, pretending to be worse off than I am, and the whole time I thought about you. I must be as mad as you are.” A hoarse chuckle. Then Kai pushed her unresisting body down flat and lowered himself on top of her, nuzzling at her neck and lips. “I need you,” he whispered, his breath hot in her ear as his cock hardened against her thigh. “You’re cold as ice. Like the Snow Queen in the Sagas. I can’t believe what you did to me.”

_I had to._ But had she, really? There was always another option, even if it meant letting Hulda kill her with her vengeance still undone. Einara had chosen to sacrifice Kai to further her plans, and she would have chosen the same way again. The least she could do was not pretend otherwise.

“I am cold,” she admitted, reaching up to stroke back the hair that tumbled into his eyes. “Colder than most people.” And then, as he grimaced, “Do you want to hurt me for being cruel? Will that make you feel better?”

“No! Stop asking me that.” He went still on top of her, his cock still hard. “I don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t believe you’re cruel, not really. She made you do it.”

He had to know the truth; she couldn’t baby him with sweet lies. He would find out sooner or later. “Hulda made me do it, yeah, but she also made me choose the means. I could have stopped at having them straitjacket you and drag you to the infirmary. But she said you needed to hate me when it was over. I had to be sure.”

Kai made a strangled noise and sat up. His cheeks were glazed with tears; he rubbed them thoughtlessly with the back of his hand. “So that’s what happens now. I—I hate you?”

“And then I’m supposed to win you back.” Einara reached up to flick a tear from his chin, but he twisted away from her. “That’s the nasty little fantasy in Fir’n Director’s head, anyway. We need to make her believe it.”

“Guess so.” Kai’s voice was thick. “How are you supposed to ‘win me back,’ then? Fuck me?”

There was something feral about his misery, as if it might turn to rage at any moment; it seemed best to avoid sudden moves. “Whatever you like,” Einara said quietly. “Whatever you need. You can keep hating me, if you prefer.”

“I _don’t_ hate you. Goddamnit, I can’t hate you.” Kai’s voice broke. “I should. I mean, what kind of a twisted fuck would think of this?”

He snagged his neckline and tugged it down to expose the brand. Small as it was, the seared flesh was a hideous mottled red. Einara cringed, but she made herself keep looking, because he was right. It was her handiwork.

“Your mark.” His mouth contorted obscenely, reminding her of his wailing in the infirmary. “Is that supposed to be funny, ’Nara?”

She dropped her eyes. “No.”

“What, then? You really want to own me? Same bullshit as the Councillors?”

“No. It was all I could think of.”

Kai’s hands captured hers, clasping them together. “Know what? Before this happened, I was thinking about marrying you.” He saw her expression. “I mean, not that we really would. Hulda wouldn’t allow it. But whores do marry sometimes; they just can’t have kids while they’re here. I knew it was ridiculous, but I kept daydreaming about the ceremony—the ribbon knotting your hand and mine together, so you would never leave me.” His breath came out in a sob. “Never felt that way about anyone before.”

He meant it. He meant it, God help him, and the realization made her gut roil with an alien sensation. Pity? Regret?

“I care about you, too.” Einara raised her eyes. “But the path I’m on—it’s a path only one person can walk. You may not know why, but you know that now.”

Kai nodded. For a moment he seemed drained of the will to respond, his shoulders sagging. Then he yanked her captive hands above her head and rolled on top of her, pressing her into the mattress.

“I need you,” he said, his jaw tight and his green eyes filled with fresh tears. “I don’t know what path you’re walking or where it goes, and I don’t know if I’m any use on it, but I want to go with you. You’ve seen my life here. I don’t have anything else.”

“Not true.” With his full weight on top of her, she was breathless. She wanted to move, to rock up against him, but she couldn’t. “You’re clean now, and I think you can stay that way. You have your apprenticeship.”

“And neither of those things would be true without you.” He lowered his face to hers, his fingertips digging into her wrists, shifting so she could feel his erection again. “I’m not a leader, Einara. I’m lazy. I need someone to tell me how to make my life matter. You do that—and Bors does, sometimes. Both of you. I need you both to tell me what to do.”

His grip on her wrists was painful, yet her body hadn’t stiffened in self-defense. Instead, it was melting into his.

Einara knew how to seduce men. She knew what a man hoped to hear in a moment like this: _You aren’t lazy. You are a leader. You can stand on your own, and green hells, how strong you are! Fuck me, please._

Instead she said the truth: “I would like to tell you what to do.”

Blankness, and then a strange smile flickered over Kai’s face. “Would you?”

Einara nodded, hoping he didn’t suddenly take it into his head to strangle her. His volatility was just on the edge of dangerous. “If that’s what you want. Together, with Bors, I think we could accomplish a great deal.”

“But some things will have to happen without Bors.” An unhinged chuckle, and then Kai released her hands and bent to claim her mouth again. His hips moved spasmodically, jamming his rigid cock against her thigh, and they stirred an answering vibration inside her.

“Green hells, I don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with me,” he whispered, his bristled cheek rubbing her smooth one. “I just want to be inside you. I _need_ it.”

Einara arched her back to kiss him, her hips moving in tandem with his. “Then let’s.”

Things happened fast after that. Still clothed, they rutted against each other, her legs spreading to hook themselves over his hips. A heat gathered in her belly that she usually felt only fleetingly, but this time it didn’t fade.

He pulled out his cock, and she took it firmly in hand, her other hand fumbling her pants down. She could feel the hot pulse of blood in him, her own engorgement like the spreading of a flower. (Poor Kai. Had he ever even seen a flower?) “Go on,” she said.

When he breached her, the first thrust filled her almost unbearably, as if she were a virgin again. Then he pulled back and eased himself in, and they fit together after all.

He gasped, braced himself, and began finding his rhythm. She held tight to his shoulders with her fingertips and his hips with her knees, pressing her calves against his ass. Now the sensation of fullness was red-hot, seething, mounting toward something—until, abruptly, her body followed its usual protocol and shut down.

It wasn’t a choice. It was a reflex learned from rape after rape. She kept hold of Kai and let him grunt and sweat on top of her, feeling nothing but a distant, clinical discomfort. She waited for him to be done.

Instead, he went still, too. “This is wrong,” he gasped.

“I don’t . . .” She stopped because men never wanted to hear _You won’t make me come with your cock. It doesn’t happen._ Maybe she should take the usual route and fake it, but he had trained her out of that. And maybe he deserved a little better after all he’d been through.

“No. We can make this work. We can.” Kai snapped his hips, pulling out of her, and flipped over onto his back. Then he crooked a finger.

Einara mounted him and took his cock again. Maybe she could fake well enough to convince him. Maybe she owed him the truth. “I’m not like you,” she admitted. “It’s hard for me.”

“I’m not hurting you, right?” He frowned. “I don’t want to. I mean that.”

“No, no.” Easy enough to reassure him. He was still rock hard, and she was wet, so she took the shaft easily until it came to the last inch or so. He _was_ big.

His hips bucked, but he managed not to hurt her. “Shit, you feel so good. I want to be in you forever.”

Maybe he really did. The notion of holding him, containing him, _possessing_ him was surprisingly . . . not bad. It liquefied something in her that had been solid, and she took him to the root at last.

Then she simply stayed there. They were both panting. His hands were at her hips, ready to push and tug, but she seized them and pinned them down the way he’d done to hers. “So, you want to be told what to do?”

“ _Yes_.” Kai squirmed, his hardness jolting against her sensitive passage. “Councillor Lindblom fucks me with a dildo, and I like it. But I’d like it more from you.”

“So you _don’t_ want to be in me forever, then?” she teased.

She felt blood pulsing through his organ, its hardness against her softness; she felt its blind, desperate need to take her in brutal thrusts. But that could wait for a minute. She was in control. He wore her mark.

Kai laughed; it was almost a groan. “Maybe half of forever.”

Einara looked down at him: flushed cheeks, blown pupils, gleaming eyes. “You’re stark raving mad to want to be anywhere near me, you know that?”

“Yeah. I do.”

And then they both started to move.

***

Bors Dartán had a heavy heart when he arrived at the Brothel for his usual appointment with Kai. He had bad news; he might as well come right out with it.

But no sooner had he stepped over the threshold than Kai leapt up and embraced him. Their kiss had a depth and passion that made Bors blush—especially since he could see Einara sitting right there on the chaise longue, waiting for them to finish.

Kai led Bors over to the chaise, his arm still around Bors’s waist, while Einara got up and poured the tea. Both she and Kai looked flushed and happy in a way Bors wasn’t used to, and they kept sneaking glances at each other.

That made Bors uneasy, but it wasn’t as if they were ignoring him. Kai wouldn’t stop touching him, and Einara handed him his tea with a glance that even Bors, with all his paranoia, thought looked fond. “I got you almond biscuits,” she said. “You like those, don’t you?”

“Thanks for remembering.” All this friendliness was making Bors dread delivering his news even more than before. “You both should know something,” he said, swallowing the bitter pill. “Director Gelmedyn let me know yesterday that I’ve been promoted to second-class Analyst.”

They looked at each other, then at him. “Congratulations!” Kai said, sounding more giddy-drunk than sapped for once.

“Yes, congratulations, Fir.” Einara offered him the dish of biscuits. “Your superiors are recognizing your merit, just as we do.”

Bors choked on his tea. Kai patted him on the back until his coughing fit subsided, and he was able to explain: “This _isn’t_ a good thing—well, not for our arrangement or Hulda’s goals, anyway. It means they’re taking me off Thurskein and the Northmen. They’ll have me investigating Upstarts with Dissenting tendencies—silly little wet-behind-the ears Uni kids and the like.”

Again the two of them exchanged an unreadable glance. Then Einara said, “I doubt Fir’n Director will mind your change of focus. She doesn’t consider the Northmen a useful source of information.”

“No? But you’re always asking me about them.”

Kai darted another glance at Einara. “Maybe we don’t always do what Hulda tells us to. Maybe we have minds of our own.”

“Of course you do.” Bors patted Kai’s knee. “But my aunt’s the one who wants information to sell to people in the Sector. You haven’t any use for it yourself.”

Einara’s blue eyes turned abruptly fierce. “Why wouldn’t we have any use for information, Fir? Because we’re only sad little whores waiting for Strutters to come fuck us?”

It was rare for her to contradict him, let alone confront him; usually she was so respectful. Bors bristled, even as Kai rubbed his back soothingly. He bit back a sharp rebuke, for Kai’s sake, and said, “I only meant that neither of you is in a position to do business with anyone outside the Brothel.”

“Not _now_ ,” Kai said. “But Hulda will die or retire soon enough, and she’s going to appoint Einara her successor.”

That didn’t add up—an Outer? But Bors didn’t want to provoke Einara’s rage again, so he said, “I suppose that would put you in a very different position.”

“Kai is getting ahead of things,” Einara said. Her eyes had dimmed, and her voice was controlled again, though not quite as deferent as usual. “Even if Hulda were to ‘appoint’ me—which is doubtful—the inspection board would have to approve me. Though,” she added thoughtfully, “it might come in handy to have a second-class Int/Sec Analyst who could testify to my fitness for the position.”

Bors wasn’t sure he liked what he was hearing. “And then what? You’d open your own channel of communication with the Northmen?”

“I already have. But with Hulda out of the way, I could do something about it.”

Blood rushed to Bors’s face. He didn’t like her tone at all. “You sound awfully eager to take control of this place—too eager. What are you two playing at?”

Kai captured Bors’s hand and raised the knuckles to his lips. “We’re not Dissidents, you ass! We’ve just been listening to everything you tell us. About how things work in Int/Sec and the Council, and how Councillors and Admins game the system and divert resources to get practically anything they want. Well, I already knew that part. My body is the proof.” He squeezed Bors’s hand tight. “Of course I believe in Whybergism, and I believe in merit, but honestly, maybe the Northmen have it right with all their contests of strength. At least they make people prove themselves. Here? In Redda? We have an _aristocracy_ , just like the Feudals. At least, that’s how it seems to me.”

Bors’s breath caught. People had been locked up for less inflammatory speeches. He could already see Kai being yanked out of his arms, handcuffed, hustled down into the vortex of Int/Sec—

“Kai,” Einara said sternly. “Bors is going to think we _are_ plotting rebellion. All we want is to have Hulda’s power and use it a little better, to benefit _all_ the workers in this place.” To Bors alone, she added, “Don’t listen when he goes off that way. He just gets . . . angry. You know what Councillors have put him through.”

Bors knew all too well, and he saw now he had encouraged Kai’s natural disdain for authority by praising the Northmen and complaining about his superiors. He was to blame for the dangerous path his friend was taking.

Unless . . . he wanted to take that path himself? Just a little? He knew he shouldn’t have listened attentively to Evorina Grenfeill’s plan for blighting the Sanctioned Sweetbush, and he _certainly_ shouldn’t have memorized the species and genus of the fungus that could cut off Redda’s supply of sap. But he had done both those things.

“Don’t patronize me,” Kai said sulkily over Bors’s head. “I’m not suggesting going out with torches and burning down Redda—Bors knows that. I’m just thinking that maybe we could take some of that intel that Hulda uses to buy her lamb chops and use it to make things _fairer_ for people like us. And people like you, Borsha,” he added, planting a kiss in Bors’s hair.

“Kai,” Einara said. “Bors is Int/Sec. Serving the Republic is his life, and that means serving it even when he doesn’t approve of how it operates.”

_Does it?_ Bors wasn’t sure anymore. All he knew was that he felt more alive when he was in the company of Laborers—Kai, Einara, Aleks Snowblind. They might not have solutions, but at least they acknowledged something was wrong. Most Strutters, as he could see for himself, had a vested interest in not doing so.

“That actually isn’t how Whyberg saw service to the Republic, Einara,” he said. “Whyberg believed in the value of Dissent. He mandated that the Bureau of Information reserve ten annual publication slots for monographs that critiqued the current administration of the government, and that it keep those critical texts in the Library, available to people of all Levels.”

Kai groaned. “And I suppose you’ve read them all.”

“No. They aren’t printed anymore; they haven’t been for sixty years. These days they’re called ‘internal critique memos,” and they’re only available on the network, which means only to Upstarts—and even then, there are passwords and security protocols.” Bors licked his lips; he was always afraid of letting saliva fly when he got off on a tear. “I’m not complaining about any of that, of course.”

“Of course,” Kai said. “ _You_ would never complain.”

Einara’s brow was furrowed. “I didn’t mean to start such a . . . heavy discussion, Fir Dartán. And I’m sure Kai didn’t mean to sound like such a firebrand. We only meant to remind you that your promotion won’t stop you from coming to see him—just the opposite.”

“Because now they won’t be able to kick you around as much,” Kai said. “Anyway, if you’re a second-class Analyst and not tied to those stupid screens all the time, won’t you have more power? If you wanted to go right on investigating the Northmen, could they really stop you?”

“I could probably still access the surveillance feed,” Bors admitted. For some reason he couldn’t stop thinking about Evorina and her pine trees. “But I think I’d need to make first-class before I could actually, er, fly south on my own initiative and meet with my Northman informant in Thurskein.”

Until this moment, he hadn’t considered the possibility of abandoning his assignments and pursuing his own agenda. It made his throat tighten and his heart knock against his ribs—not just with dread, but with excitement.

“Then make first-class!” Kai pulled Bors closer, his mood shifting rapidly from gloomy sarcasm to what looked like excitement of his own. “I know you can do it, Borsha. Capture some silly Uni Dissidents and get yourself promoted again. We’ll be waiting.”

Einara nodded. “And we can help you. I think we can help each other.”

_Help each other what?_ What could the three of them possibly do to make things more fair without harming Redda or anything else that mattered?

Then, of course, Bors knew.

He drew a deep breath. If he took the next step, if he told them, he might be avowing himself a traitor and sowing the seeds of his own ruin. Karishkov, for one, would see it that way.

But Karishkov had set Aleks Snowblind free for reasons that Bors couldn’t fathom. What did his ex-mentor know about loyalty or consistency?

Bors released the breath. “Last time I was here, on the way out, I ran into Evorina Grenfeill, the director of the Sanctioned Sweetbush. She told me something very interesting. Sabotaging our supply of sap would be simple, and it might actually do some good . . .”

***

Kai removed Bors’s clothing piece by piece, kissing and teasing him before tossing each garment to the floor. “No, lie still,” he said when Bors tried to help. And then, in a breathy whisper, “I want you so badly.”

By the time he was naked, Bors was red-faced and hopelessly hard. He didn’t know what Kai was going to do to him or ask him to do, and not knowing felt like being tickled, right on the knife edge between pleasure and pain. He swallowed hard as Kai took a step back from the bed and began to undress.

Kai had fewer clothes to remove. The loose trousers, the stretchy shirt. Still in his briefs, which bulged with his erection, he came and stretched out on the bed beside Bors in one long, graceful movement. He propped himself on an elbow, his muddy-green eyes catching the light. “Before we start, there’s something you should know.”

That was when Bors saw the brand. Scar tissue caught the light, too.

He hissed through his teeth and recoiled before he could control himself, woozy with a nausea that didn’t mix well with arousal. “ _Who did that?_ ”

Kai just looked at him. “It hurt. It doesn’t now.”

Bors was shaking all over. Blood rushed to his head as it filled with confused images: _Whoever did it, make them pay._ He saw himself ambushing a faceless Councillor in his office and slitting the man’s throat. Being hauled off in shackles. Stepping off a plane into the frigid whiteness of exile. “Who?” he managed. “Which one?”

The corner of Kai’s mouth twitched upward. “It’s not what you think. No patron gave me this. I wanted it.”

“ _Wanted_ it?”

Kai reached between them, slow and lazy, and flicked a strand of hair out of Bors’s eyes. “Well, it’s a long story. But, to make it short, I pledged myself to Einara. This _E_ is for her.”

Bors shook his head. “She did it?”

Nothing made sense. Whatever sort of power Einara wielded in the Brothel, surely she couldn’t maim a precious Jewel—who was, moreover, a real Oslov, a child of Upstarts. More importantly, he couldn’t imagine Einara branding anyone—and then, remembering the cold fierceness in her eyes earlier, maybe he could.

“I could have her exiled for this,” he said, his jaw tightening.

Kai ran a fingertip down Bors’s cheek. “And I would never forgive you.”

“I don’t understand. Has the girl bewitched you?” A word from a saga, with no place in modern Oslov. “Has she brainwashed you?”

Kai inched toward Bors until they were less than a hand’s-width apart. “She didn’t want me to tell you, but I think you need to know everything. I love you, and I love her. I want to marry her, if she’ll ever have me. Maybe I’d marry you, too, if I could. I just want you both with me, forever. It’s the only way I can hold on to myself.”

Bors should have been jealous. He should have been _horrified._ But all he felt was something enormous and warm and wet pressing behind his eyelids.

“You’re not in your right mind,” he whispered.

Kai did not blink. “Maybe. But I haven’t drunk sap for nearly five days now.” His own eyes shining with tears, he tugged Bors into his arms. “Stay with me, Borsha. Don’t hate me. I want you to take me now, take me deep. I need you so much.”

The words _I want you to take me_ had the same effect on Bors’s cock as they always did. He squirmed in Kai’s arms, ravenous and repelled at once. “Are you really clean? How did you—how did she do it?”

“I don’t even know.” Kai breathed the words in his ear.

Bors had no trouble believing Einara had brought Kai back from the brink of self-destruction. For all her carefully controlled accent and manners, she was Harga—wild like the Wastes she came from—and Kai was a being of emotion, not reason. Where Bors had failed to move Kai with rational arguments, Einara had succeeded—but at what price?

Bors shuddered, trying not to stare at the brand. “I don’t believe you wanted that. It’s only what you’re telling yourself.”

“I said it was a long story. Someday I’ll tell you. But the important thing is what I just said—how I feel about you both.”

Bors wondered why it had taken him so long to understand that Kai needed Bors to look after him. Whatever was going on between Kai and Einara, he would stay close, mediate, and make sure Kai didn’t get hurt again. It wasn’t like he’d ever have to worry about that woman seducing _him_.

He would find out more about Einara’s political goals, too, and temper them with reason. He would educate them both, showing them the bright line between treason and a robust, maverick patriotism (which might just encompass meddling with the sap supply).

He freed his arms from Kai’s embrace and pulled Kai to him for a kiss, hands tangling in his hair. “I’ll never leave you alone, love. Never.”

Their bodies pressed against each other, Kai’s hard cock reawakening his, and Bors knew he would do whatever Kai wanted in bed, tonight and every night to come.

He felt as if a door that had been closed inside him his whole life was swinging open, exposing his secret inner places to the daylight. He felt raw and scared and _good_. He felt ready to risk and dare.

His new life was starting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if anyone's reading to the end of this story, but if you did, thank you, and I hope it made some form of sense despite the rather (very?) twisted, codependent relationships happening here. The next story will pick up eight years later, when Hulda dies. Meanwhile, I'm going to check in with Tilrey, Gersha, and Ceill.


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